Sixth Annual Shizume City Arcade Tournament
by Arait
Summary: Yata, Fushimi, and Azami don't have much interaction anymore, but on a special day such as this, they have a chance encounter. Full of games, literal and psychological. (Side story to Waiting for Totsuka)
1. Three Ways to Start a Morning

**Hey, Kateracks here! Arait is attending to classes and was unable to make this rendezvous, but she asked me to post a gift for all of our lovely readers: A new short story about our favorite trio! Just a little something to tide you over until Missing Kings, for those of you who haven't seen it yet. Okay, it's mostly for us because we're on withdrawal, but you guys are benefiting! So what is the premise of this new and exciting fic? Well, you'll just have to read on to find out. Enjoy!**

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><p>Fushimi woke with the sensation that something important was supposed to happen that day. He rolled over on the top bed of the otherwise uninhabited bunks and groped for his phone. Without his glasses, he tried to decipher the date and time on the screen. Was it 6:31 or 8:37? If the earlier time were true, he didn't want to trouble with putting on his glasses just to go back to sleep. Through squinted eyes, he watched the minute change and recognized it was 8:38, probably past time to get up.<p>

He dragged himself to his feet, therefore, and got a clear look at the date. January 21. Was that supposed to mean something to him? It was an authorized day off, he recalled, and while that was preferable to working, it didn't clearly explain why he felt that the day had special meaning. While he got dressed in casual clothes, he ran possibilities through his mind. It wasn't the birthday of anyone he knew - not that such a thing would matter to him, but it certainly would nag in the back of his mind like a fact neither remembered nor forgotten. Neither was it a known holiday, Asian, secular, Christian, or otherwise.

Deciding to shrug it off, he headed out of his personal dorm room, intent on making it out of the facility before the grand majority would have woken. As much as being up early was an annoyance, sleeping in on one of these gratuitous days off was always a bad idea. When the break was unrelated to events or festivals, people had the tendency to want to just "hang out." Even worse than being pulled into one of his coworkers' strange hobbies, however, was the likelihood that the captain would hijack one of those activities and try to make his participation enjoyable to them.

On the calendar that hung from the wall in the elaborate corridor, nothing particularly stood out about the 21st of January. It was not circled. No one had written of parties or major changes, so he continued on his way. He didn't actually have any intentions, other than leaving the bureau. Perhaps he would simply wander aimlessly until something caught his attention.

A bitterly cold breeze came up as he passed the gate, exiting the protective tree cover. He pulled the collar of his jacket closer around his neck and kicked at what few dead leaves remained blowing about the sidewalk. Probably he would go someplace indoors.

Breakfast would have to come first. Even if Fushimi was not well known for eating healthy food at regular intervals, he was hungry in the mornings. Taking the bus to a familiar convenience store, he got himself a warm beverage - highly caffeinated, but with less coffee than other ingredients. Also, he chose out something fried and mostly artificial, somewhat like a large egg roll. No eye contact was made with the cashier, and based on that person's appearance, he found himself relieved that plastic wrapper had prevented the unappealing guy from touching his food. Who knew what that guy did with his hands.

After exiting the store, Fushimi took a sip of the drink and then ran his fingers through his hair. _Right or left? _ Two men, maybe 30, walked by in low end suits, clearly on their way to a job in the business district. A quick analysis of the men indicated that they likely held middle management positions in a company that was probably largely dominated by the Gold King's innovative control. That meant, while they sincerely worked to further research and improve their personal careers, they really had no say in anything.

Usually, Fushimi would pass by the likes of them with a scoff and little interest. Their current conversation inclined his ear, however, and he discretely followed after them. They spoke with anticipation of a new technology about to hit the market, of their excitement to implement it in their own lives, and of what they thought it would improve. For a moment, he thought maybe this was leaked information from the top levels of research and development about the next big thing that the Gold King would release. Soon he entirely lost interest.

The technology they were referring to was something he had already been using for quite some time. Breaking away from the main road long before the men would have suspected him of following them, Fushimi headed more towards downtown. That was where most activities were centralized, so logically he was more likely to stumble across something to do in that district.

As far as foods go, the fried thing wasn't particularly impressive. He threw the wrapper away as he crossed a street, grateful to be forever rid of anything that connected him to that disgusting gas station worker. On the other side, a woman fussed over a screaming baby in a stroller while what appeared to be twins in primary school attire fought over something that belonged to both of them. This irritation caused him to deviate from his path immediately.

From there he was simply lead by his own feet while his mind drifted off to other worlds. Perhaps the reason the day felt like it should be important was because society was finally coming to an end. He thought he would like to be able to sense the pending doom of the entire planet. That would allow him liberty to decide who he would certainty not warn. The ordinary aspect of an average weekday lent itself well to surprise destruction. None of these dull, uninteresting people leading their normal lives would see it coming, and that would be their loss when at last the time came. He wouldn't miss them. Hazy clouds in the winter sky didn't seem very ominous at all, though, and he found himself wondering just _what _could catch them by surprise that day.

Biogenetically altered super diseases seemed plausible. Of course, something like that could only be invented by someone under the Gold King's control. If he wanted to wipe out civilization, he certainly could. Presumably, he would inform Scepter 4 of such plans. In turn, the captain would inform some of his members or at least behave strangely. Maybe that was why they were granted this unusual, inexplicable day off work. Possibly he was expected to have observed this anomaly and lend him assistance.

This led Fushimi to a question he was unable to answer. In a case such as that one, would Munakata's secret message be for Fushimi to help save the world, or help permit its destruction? After all, they did frequently work under the Gold King clandestinely. Quickly his musings turned to how he would destroy the world if given the chance.

It was during this time that his eyes were drawn to a poster on the window of a familiar building. "Sixth Annual SCAT." That was definitely it! The announcement confirmed the date of this tournament was January 21st, as it had been during the preceding five years. Of course he would remember the date of this event. He had been cornered into participating two times already.

SCA was an abbreviation for Shizume City Arcades Tournament. During this tournament, gamers from all over town with homes in all sorts of different centers gathered together in this one arcade to test each other's skills and their own. This arcade was one he formerly had not be unaccustomed to frequenting, thanks to its proximity to a certain bar.

It was not in the red clan's territory, however, which meant nothing prevented him from going in. With a shrug, he opened the door, causing the chime of a tiny bell. Typically audible, the large quantity of people overpowered the sound of the bell, as well as the tolerance of the unsociable young man. He really had no clue why he had even come in here. It was already very crowded.

"Fushimi-kun," a scrawny many called from behind the counter, and already it was too late to leave. This man was rather awkward for a business owner, wearing colors that didn't quite match and a graphic T-shirt with vague references to minute details of obsolete fandoms. His hair was rather unkempt, and he stuttered slightly at the beginning of most of his sentences. He might have wound up living in a basement with science fiction wall-scrolls and comic books, not unlike the creepy gas station employee if inspiration hadn't motivated him to open an arcade. Necessity then forced him into improving basic social skills. Success had nearly rendered him normal.

Fushimi approached him out of obligation, already thinking of a way to excuse himself. After all, the owner of the arcade had occasionally provided intelligent conversation in the past.

"You're late," he continued, already used to the fact that this particular customer never said much. "but I'm glad you're here. Haven't seen you in a few years. You're looking good." As he spoke he wrote in a register, inscribing Fushimi's name and some details relating to his contestancy.

The dark haired boy tried to cut in to protest that he hadn't come to participate in the tournament. Before he could, though, the owner tore out a receipt with a score sheet and a player number.

Handing it to Fushimi, he concluded, "Better get started. Yata-kun already has a few machines under his belt."

The gaping lips that had been prepared to refuse tightened instantly, and Fushimi snatched the papers. If nothing else, he should go in and check it out. As formerly, the games appeared to be from only limited categories - racing, fighting, classic, and interactive. He glanced around to get a quick grasp of the competition. There were gamers of all kinds, from 10 and 11 year old arrogant brats, to possibly perverted old men with bald spots and beer guts who wanted to prove they could still play with the youngsters.

Most of the crowd was made up of teens. They alone varied from the quiet type whose social ineptitude enabled them to master only virtual interactions to the obnoxiously loud who thought of an arcade as just another social gathering. Girls were less common, but a few could be seen sporting unnatural hair colors and animal hoodies or dressed entirely like they'd just come from the Harujuku district.

In this crowd, Fushimi sought out a single face, one with orangish hair on an especially short body - though compared to these preteens and young girls, he might fit in just fine. Even so, that voice could carry and was almost always shouting furiously. In the midst of his search, his eyes caught sight of a flash of green and widened slightly. Hayashi was here too?

Deciding to avoid making contact with either of them for the time being, Fushimi made his way to the far back of the arcade. If there were any games here that required intelligent thought and strategizing, he was more likely to find them in the far corner than right up front with Town Fighter, Zombie Crush, and Greatest Auto Thief. Of course, the tournament was designed to judge the city's best gamer on their accumulated score between all of the machines, so he would eventually have to attempt those also. For now, he figured he should start on something more like a transdimensional, psychological maze. That particular game would make Misaki think so hard that he would often get dizzy and go sit down.

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><p>Yata was in particularly high spirits that day. He had hardly slept at all the night before in his excitement, yet he didn't seem in the slightest bit drowsy. Since the recent death of his friends, there had been many sleepless nights, and he rarely woke up from them in a fair mood. It had been well over a month since the event, and everyone was glad to see him pulling together. Then again, January 21st was <em>always <em>a big day for him. It got his blood pumping. The spirit of competition always did. For that reason, none of them were surprised to see him ready to take on the world.

He had already been talking about the tournament for a week.

Nothing was allowed to get in his way. Be it at the bar or on the congested city streets, no obstacle proved big enough to delay the skater for more than a brief moment. He reached the arcade in record time. This had been like a second home to him, where he grew up at. Whether his "first home" had been with his parents, the apartment that he shared with Fushimi once, or the bar HOMRA, this arcade had consistently been there to back him up through good and bad times. It was where he hung out with friends, hid from storms (both literal and figurative), and blew off steam. He had a fondness in his heart for this place, something that nothing else could compare to.

It was definitely full of memories. There Anna had first been exposed to the world of gaming, and they had blown nearly every yen they possessed to allow her as many opportunities as possible to blast those zombies to bits (even though that money had been reserved especially for buying her new clothes). He had earned more than one scar in scuffles there from people who had pissed him off - whether it be from insults to his skill, him personally, or Homra. Sometimes he felt as if he could lay claim to the place like his territory, as if he owned it. He basically did. Most of the high scores belonged to him, after all. Him and Hayashi.

A bittersweet thought of _her _actually made him hesitate at the door to the arcade. What if the Green Girl were there? Out of all the conflicting emotions he could possibly feel for _that person, _what came foremost to mind were the first three, humiliating encounters, one of which had been here. This place that was his personal home also belonged to her. She was the only other person with her name among the top high scores, a fact that she had perfectly clear when the crowd cheered her name during a dance show down.

What did he care? Maybe she had some good scores, but his _were _higher. Whatever rank was no longer his, he would reclaim. That would settle it. He didn't give a damn who else participated in this tournament. He was the reigning champion. This was his arcade; he had the home court advantage. He wasn't going to leave with anything less than first place.

Having restored courage to his heart, he flung the door open with such authority that the dozen, early rising contestants were brought to silence for a brief moment. One might have easily assumed the police were there to bust an illegal drug trade, but it was just Yata fired up.

Behind the counter, the arcade owner tore out a sheet of paper for the newly arrived gamer. It was already completely filled out as if the man had never once doubted Yata would certainly come for this event. Neither did the boy require any of the contest instructions that might be provided for a first-timer, outlining the way a winner was chosen, how long the tournament would last, and a few obvious rules of sportsmanlike behavior.

Instead, the owner simply handed Yata the card with the polite wish, "Good gaming, Yata-kun."

In return, Yata threw his fist in the air and declared, "All right! Let's start this!"

He made his way first to the zombie game for no particular reason. All of them were games he loved that he could conquer with no problem. Zombies, though, was right in front of him, the machine was unoccupied, and he found it easy. Sliding his card into the machine, he lifted the plastic gun to his face and watched the timer countdown, "3, 2, 1...Go."

"This one's for Anna!" Making a statement that was somewhat strange while he began shooting undead humans with all his heart drew a few suspicious looks from gamers around Yata because: who dedicates such a bloody game to a girl?

Per his expectations, he cleared the game having killed every zombie instance to appear and not a single baby stroller that unexpectedly made its way across the screen. Satisfied with his perfect score, he reclaimed his card to move on to the next game. The card, which was used to keep a cumulative score of all the games each participant played during the tournament also sent an automated update to the leader board hanging from the back wall. Yata took a moment to glance up at it and noticed he was already in the tenth place position, after only a single game. Of course, that would be difficult to maintain once more contestants showed up.

Yata didn't think this way, though. Totally vamped, he rushed on ahead knowing with only another game or two he could quickly be in the top three.

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><p>"Damnit!" rang out in the corridors of the Green Clan's base on an otherwise relatively calm January 21st. The inhabitants parted and hugged the walls of the dorm hallway to make room as a mess of green and grey came boiling out of one of the bedrooms. Tripping over large sweats that had fallen too low in sleep and snatching up dropped socks, the possibly-female-bed-monster dashed down the hall shouting warnings of its approach.<p>

"Excuse me! Pardon me! Look out! Late girl coming through! Move it, people!"

One pair did not hit the deck as the presence neared, though, so the girl went around them via a well-placed tic tac along the wall. The command "Gonna be late! Get the lead out, Kazuki!" echoed in her wake. The male with light brown hair smiled down at the new recruit at his side.

"That blur of green was Hayashi, Azami," he said.

The girl looked after where the mentioned blur went as a door slammed shut in that direction. "What's she late for? Some meeting we need to get to or something?" she inquired.

"Nah," Kazuki replied. "It's the city-wide arcade tournament today. We go every year. Usually she's up before the sun rises and ready to go, but I knew she was gonna have a late night of picking up chicks so what she doesn't know is I set her clock ahead half an hour. She's not as late as she thinks she is."

The recruit looked a little disturbed. "She was picking up chicks?"

Kazuki smiled. "Code for: she was out late on extra missions and kissing up."

"You think you need to use code in your own clan?" she asked.

He laughed and slapped her on the shoulder which earned him a glare that went unnoticed. "You've been missing all kinds of excitement in your life! Lucky for you, you joined the Green Clan and we have precisely the cure for that. Come on. We have just enough time for me to conclude my portion of the tour and hand you off to Shun before I have to leave."

The girl tuned out his explanation of the dorms and looked over her shoulder to where Azami had disappeared. With a curl in her lip, she uttered, "Freak."

It wasn't the showering part that took so long, but rather the doing of the hair. She considered very seriously just pulling it up in a ponytail and letting it go, but if she won today, she wanted to look good in the photos. Sometimes her insistence to look put together each did occasionally lean a little more toward the vanity side of things than her need to be ready so as to run to someone's aid at the first call for help (even though that was still very important and close to her heart). She cut as many corners as she could, but it still consumed more time than she would have liked.

She met Kazuki outside the warehouse and together they took off at a dead run down the street. Kazuki was pretty quick on his feet, probably from his seemingly endless supply of energy. Likely, that was why he and Shun were most often paired with Azami since they were among the few who could keep up. Even so, neither of them could parkour and so on days such as these she tried to limit herself to the ground and take less crowded routes. They cut their time in half, even with the pit stop the male made.

"Hey Azami, we're gonna pull over for a second!" he called from a few paces back.

She hit the brakes and he ran past her, making a sharp turn into a McDoodle's parking lot and around to the drive thru window.

"What are—"

"You didn't eat breakfast," he simply stated.

"That's okay—"

"It's not okay. You gotta be at the top of your game. We're competing against the best nerds from all over the city and we gotta show them that they're still the biggest losers around!"

With that, he knocked on the glass and a startled crew member slid it open, giving him an irritated look.

"Dude, go around to the door. This is a _drive thru_," the younger boy inside directed.

Kazuki gave him a cheesy grin. "No way, man! We're in a hurry!"

"I can't serve you until you go around, _sir_."

"Sir?" Kazuki was aghast and gave the pimple-faced teen a dirty look. "Do I look old to you? Don't make me take my business elsewhere, young man. Could result in a bad review for you."

The younger boy heaved a resigned sigh. "What'll you have?"

Despite the earlier insult, Kazuki's good nature continued to shine through. "One parfait, please!"

Azami laughed as the window slid shut, but still insisted, "We don't have time for this."

Her partner spun her around then and pointed at the LED sign of a bank across the street. Azami read the time, blinked, looked again. Sure enough, she was half an hour earlier than she thought she was.

"We can catch up. They can't even touch us anyway. We're that good," the male reassured her as the crew member returned with his order.

Azami grinned. "Have I ever told you how awesome you are?"

Putting the parfait in one of her hands and a spoon in the other, Kazuki slung his arm around her shoulders and urged her into a comfortable walk. "Yes, but go ahead. I'll listen."

"You, Nakahara, Kazuki, are awesome. You always watch my back and you take good care of me."

"Somebody's gotta or you'll bleed yourself dry, imouto-san."

The arcade was packed by the time they reached the door. Azami took a second there to throw the plastic cup that had contained her breakfast in the trashcan by the entrance, but before they even opened it she could hear the ruckus of heated competition inside. They couldn't even hear the cheerful tinkling of the bell as they entered. They made their way to the back counter to get their cards, but the manager wasn't present. Luckily they didn't have to search too far because as they began to wander and scan the crowd, they met him coming out of a back room holding a box of fuses.

"Nakahara-san! Hayashi-san!" he greeted them.

"You have a blowout?" Kazuki joked, gesturing to the objects in his hand.

"Luckily not up here yet," the manager said and tapped his temple. He headed back toward the desk and retrieved their cards. "I was afraid you wouldn't come."

"Wouldn't miss it," Azami said.

With an approving smile, the man held up the fuses. "Well, I better go get this running for you. You've got some catching up to do, you know."

Kazuki saluted. "We're on it."

It was decided that the pair would start out on a team game to get warmed up. Usually they would play on a team until all applicable games had been tried and then split. However, being that they did indeed have a lot to catch up on and those types of games split the cumulative points in half, they saved most of them for later.

They chose a racing game where you could choose to be a watercraft of some kind and race on tracks that incorporated waterway and dry land aspects. Stay out of the water too long, though, and your health would be depleted. It was a strange mix of risk taking and strategy in which they competed against 18 other CPU's divided into 9 teams. Their usual approach against these was to have one person be a smaller, faster vehicle while the other drove a large one for defense. Kazuki typically chose the latter option so he could enjoy smashing things. Azami appreciated letting him have her back so she could just concentrate on going as fast as she wanted. She was the biggest risk-taker, after all.

"Agh!" she shouted as someone rammed her and she lost both health and points.

"What happened?" her partner asked as he passed her by.

"Snuff that blue jet ski!"

"On it!"

As they passed through a village, Kazuki caught up to the offending CPU and boxed it in so that it smeared its life down the side of a cottage until it met its demise in a water wheel. Azami passed the wreckage and sped into first once more.

"You alright? You're engine is smoking," she observed.

"I'm low but I'll be alright. That guy won't be coming back for revenge either."

Azami scanned her surroundings and spied a familiar shortcut. "You gotta make it to the next turn into the forest. If you drive up the hill there's HP at the top. It's dry land, though, so go slow or you'll burn up."

He followed her directions and warned from the lookout point, "Bogies on your six."

She banked hard left and shoved one boat up onto dry land, eating some of her life in the process. Kazuki ramped off the hill and crashed into the other, also putting that one out of commission. Not far from the finish line now, they finished first and second.

Kazuki slapped her a high-five. "Nice job, partner! We're gonna finish strong today just like that!" He peered around her and, if possible, his face brightened even more. "Dino-Land Adventure is open!"

"What are you, in middle school?" she jabbed as he rushed to take his turn.

He shot her a final parting grin. "Today I am! I'll catch up with you later!"

Shaking her head, she looked around for the next open console and frowned at the option. Zombies. They still had that game. She wasn't much of a fan anymore simple because she had burned herself out on it. Or that's what she told herself. In reality, she really wasn't a fan of the rifle. If it had been the game's avatar holding it, it wouldn't have been so bad, but the model the gamer was supposed to handle looking like the real deal. She had only played it in the beginning of its fame to make a couple hot-headed teenage boys shut up about girls not being able to rock shooting games. Then she kept playing after that to keep the high score until the game lost its initial popularity.

On the other hand, though, she knew fully well that a player could rack up serious points if they harvested hoards of the undead. Many of the competitors would have started out with that game to get a jump on the day. She decided to suffer through it one more time.

As soon as the card was inserted and the screen darkened into a nighttime cutscene, her body's muscle memory took over. She remembered each corner to come around shooting, which ditch to keep a close eye on, and which buildings were a living corpse gold mine. In no time at all, she had cleared the round and the end screen exploded into stars that proclaimed "NEW HIGH SCORE!"

She muttered to herself, "I still got it."

The leaderboard appeared and scrolled up to the top where the cursor appeared in the first spot and bumped that placeman (AKA the one and only Yatagarasu) into second. She typed her name in all caps and then smiled smugly as she moved on to her next victim. She could almost hear him shouting in frustration.

"ORRYAA!"

Azami stopped in her tracks. It wasn't her imagination; he was here. There was no mistaking that voice. She had spent so much time arguing with it, hearing it babble out exaggerated stories, kinda missing it…

She shook her head. Her day had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

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><p><strong>And that's it for Part 1! Stay tuned for the next installment to see what kind of trouble these three get into this time!<strong>


	2. Fushimi is a Creeper

_**Ohayo mina-san! Arait has returned, having successfully completed her training course (which happened to take place in French, btw). Great thanks to Kateracks who posted Chapter 1. The only person in the world besides her dad that Arait would give her password to. What were everyone's thoughts? Also to our biggest fan mst88 for calling these "friends" your favorite threesome: you have no idea how much that means to us! :'D**_

_**As mentioned previously, this is not the sequel you are looking forward to. This is meant to just be a random side story to help all of us who haven't seen MK yet to hold back from reading The Countdown manga. Lol, maybe this is sort of like our "Countdown to the sequel."**_

_**As for what's going on in the life of Arait, the most recently translated chapter of LSW is giving her a Fushimi Niki crisis. That man scares the crap out of her. Also, Neko* stole Munakata's sword of Damocles.**_

_**Disclaimer: We do not own Fushimi or Yata. Not even the arcade, its owner, or the hole that Suoh put in the claw machine. Kateracks - in all her cleverness - has actually invented a few games, but even most of those are copyrighted and exist in real life. But we own Azami, and that's good enough for us. Please enjoy.**_

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><p>When Fushimi had first arrived, Yata was already in second place and quickly closing on the first. This was, obviously, to be expected, so the younger boy didn't give it much heed. After all, Yata was an all around adept arcader. He would certainly play all the games he was good at first, also, leaving the more complicated, frustrating ones for last. Fushimi also didn't bother to look at the leader board much because some of the people there had already been racking up their score for an hour longer than him. There was no way he'd find his own name listed up there, probably not even later.<p>

After finishing the transdimensional warping maze, he did glance briefly at the game's local high scores to see that only one person beside himself had ever ranked. That person in eighth or ninth place used a screen name that was so obviously nerdy that Fushimi wondered if maybe it wasn't the owner himself. He certainly didn't feel like his only title in this place was threatened, so he moseyed on over to another one of the games that he didn't entirely hate: Tetris.

That game took an incredibly long time for players to complete, so another person was in the middle of a game at that time. No one else was in line behind him, though, which made it a good time to call dibs—not that Fushimi actually called dibs, but he did run off a couple kids who tried to encroach upon his rightful spot as "next at Tetris" with a mild glare that they found scary. While he waited, he slid his card into whatever game was directly to the right of his ultimate destination. It happened to be an old, 8 bit spaceship game that anyone could master mindlessly.

Tetris required thought. When, at last, he got his hands on that machine, he thought of all the games there, it was at least worth _something. _Rather than simply proving a person could push buttons in rapid succession, it demonstrated one's ability to make quick decisions. He didn't mind much spending an unreasonably disproportionate portion of his allotted tournament time conquering this machine. In fact, once the blocks started moving faster, and he allowed his mind to get seriously involved in the game, he completely forgot his sole purpose in coming had been to find Yata.

A few dozen levels later, the game came to a screeching end because pieces simply moved too fast for his reaction time. As he waited for the machine to make its notes on his card, he watched the local top scores. His current attempt had made it on in fourth place, knocking his only other appearance off the list. That said, there were plenty of other names to appear this time. Three different ranks belonged to Hayashi.

Startled, Fushimi looked around once more for signs of her. That flash of green he saw earlier might not have just been his mind transforming shadows of artificially colored punks into people from his past. That girl actually came to this place, at least frequently enough to have top scores. Everyone who ranked in anything came for this tournament. She had to be there somewhere, which really shouldn't have come as a surprise after the energy with which she had played Yata's racing game that one night at the apartment...

He couldn't see her in the masses of people crowding the normally barren gaming hall, but she was there. Her name was in seventh place on the leader board, which he figured only meant she had arrived later than the leaders above her. Concluding he'd run into them eventually if he just kept playing, Fushimi successfully convinced himself that he wasn't doing this because he was really into the games. Claiming his card as if he could use it to slit a throat, Fushimi looked around to see what else was available.

The claw. This game was a particularly challenging machine to overcome. However, acquiring one of the pointless, stuffed animals from within would grant one copious amounts of bonus points. To make things more difficult, the hinges on the claw itself were deliberately loose to cause premature dropping of the prizes, the toys were packed more tightly than average, and the glass was damaged. On one occasion Suoh, Mikoto had come into this arcade with Anna and had attempted to attain a toy within. When usual methods failed to procure him the designated prize, he had turned to more physical solutions. The machine had been repaired with a patch of duct tape, which left reduced visibility in the center of the playing field.

Fushimi took great note of this game as countless beginners hinged their tournament-winning strategy on the lucky chance that they could boost their points at the claw. Some would go there after their frustration at a devastating loss elsewhere. Others, like jocks, simply didn't realize how rigged games such as those were and thought they could show off for friends.

"Keep at it, losers," he muttered to himself, eying the claw from across the room. In just a little while longer, they would have loosened everything well enough that one of the toys would be accessible. That would be the moment that experts would jump in.

Because of the unique card system used only for the tournament, as well as the registration fee, all games could be freely accessed and repeated as many times as necessary. Veterans typically knew better than to play a single game repeatedly, since only the best score would be recorded. They would make one run through all the games and then use remaining time to return to games on which they performed poorly. This was a useful feature of the tournament, though, because there were those times when you just blow a game right at the start and want a redo.

Certain people would spend way too much time on a single machine, trying to perfect their score. This was not the case with Yata. He had placed in this tournament five of the six years and had won once. He steered completely clear of the claw. Not once in his entire life had he _ever _gotten anything out of a claw machine, so he certainly would not succeed on a day that it's difficulty had been increased.

Yata was the kind of person who, when faced with a claw machine, would try three times for good measure and then become so frustrated with it that he began to kick it, demanding that it return the money he really shouldn't have spent in the first place. This was not how Fushimi was. From a more intellectual perspective, he outright refused to participate. Winning was specifically designed to be impossible.

There was a time once that he had played.

_Back when Yata and he attended the same middle school, they had passed by a claw while__walking through town. Immediately it had caught Yata's attention on the sweet, considerate side of him that was mostly hidden but ran very deep and strong. Pressing his face and hands against the glass, he pointed to a pink toy in the back that looked like it was being tortured by being buried up to the neck. _

_"Look, it's a bunny," he declared. "Doesn't your cousin always got bunnies with her?"_

_Fushimi had replied with a scoff, "She doesn't need more."_

_"That thing would cost a ton at a store! Here it'll only take 50 yen," he explained, making what might seem at first glance to be a valid point. "Imma get it for her."_

_In his velcro wallet, he had found a 50 yen coin, so there had been no reason for Fushimi to complain at that point. Leaning up against the side of the vending machine, he kept his eyes glued to his PDA while Yata lost. That was how the cycle of failure and proving oneself began. Yata, who swore that it had been a one time mistake and that he had a better feel of the game controls now, demanded money from Fushimi. _

_In turn, Fushimi who cared none at all about small change like that forked over whatever his friend would need to believe that he was attempting something impossible, all the while making discouraging comments like, "You aren't gonna get it that way."_

_On his third try, Yata retorted angrily, "Don't just say that, Smartass. If I'm doing it wrong, show me the right way!"_

_As if it were bothersome for him, Fushimi turned around and tapped on the glass. "Come at it from this angle." He guided his friend with precise instructions. "A little right... A little back... Steady... Drop." _

_The claw went down, grasping with each of its appendages around the head of the pink bunny. It pulled, and the bunny moved, rising an arm out of its constricting prison. Then, the claw returned empty, taunting the boys by dropping its empty pay load into the dispenser while the poor animal cried out for help. _

_Yata kicked the bottom panel mercilessly and cussed it out as if it had been personally responsible for denying the boys their prize. "We won," he kept insisting. "We got it! Damn machine jipped us."_

_Whereas he was causing a scene kicking, screaming, and stomping around, something terrible had happened to Fushimi as soon as he had started guiding Yata. Gradually, he become more and more convinced that he could win. Facts and calculations that he had considered before, statistics of how the game was created deliberately to make them fail, and the clear knowledge that four other toys were currently more plausible to access than that worthless bunny all went out the window. _

_Yata had put his money in there. He had allowed his mind to create a plan of action. It was too late to turn back. As soon as that stuffed animal had moved just enough to raise its tiny little arm, Fushimi knew they could not stop until he acquired it. The vulgar boy stopped shouting when he heard a coin slide into the slot and stared in bewilderment as the friend who typically stayed at the sidelines took over the controls. _

_Nine tries was how long it took Fushimi to succeed. More than once, Yata had encouraged him to give up because it wasn't worth the effort. To the poor boy, it wasn't worth the money they had spent on it, either. However, Fushimi pressed on, no longer motivated by the thoughts of an intelligent mind but rather by a carnal instinct that man must dominate machine._

_In any case, his cousin could no longer say he never got anything for her. _

From that moment onward, Fushimi had not touched a claw machine again. Usually he would not even enter the general vicinity of one. It had caused him to lose his mind. When observed from a distance, he could clearly read the signs of improbability. So long as he neither touched nor approached, he had absolutely no desire to make a single attempt. If, however, he happened to try, a firm conviction that the human mind must, in all cases, be capable of overcoming anything it creates itself would take over.

This did not mean that he believed just any person could ever even hope to have the smarts to take on the claw and win. Most of them would never be able to out think the rigging system. It would be an insult to his intelligence, however, if he could not. Part of out thinking it was to not fall victim to its trap until you could win. That day, at the tournament, fifty failures had already past. Fifty mindless fish too dumb to not take the bait of a mega points jackpot had each contributed to Fushimi's later chance of success.

Pondering these things with a somewhat villainous flair, Fushimi went straight for Pachinko.

* * *

><p>For his part, Yata loved the games that implemented actual body motion, such as the race that had a real car seat and steering wheel rather than arrow keys. Another favorite of his were the ones that required an opponent, like air hockey. One had to be careful when choosing their opponent since - while your score would count as your score no matter what - someone stronger than you would cause you to lose; whereas, someone significantly weaker than you could help you rack up tons of extra points.<p>

According to Yata, that was for cheaters. He wasn't about to use some weak novice as a springboard to first place. Anyone who did was a dickwad. On the other hand, plenty of people were well aware that Yata was the undefeated air hockey champion of Shizume City. Not many dared challenge him. For this reason, he had his pick of a total newbie who didn't yet know to run at first sight, and a cocky, fifteen year old girl who ruled as queen in an arcade in the suburbs with dramatic hips, and a tiny skirt. The meek, young boy who just wanted to play would have his dreams crushed by Yata, so that was an impossibility. Playing against a girl was equally so.

He froze momentarily, counting how many buttons of her shirt were undone. Even he had enough foresight to recognize the moment she bent down to the table, her twins would bare their fangs at him. A blush was threatening to appear at the mere thought. He could tell because all the blood was rushing to his head, pounding in his temples, and making his face hot. She was a curvelicious teen who had gotten just a tad pudgy from a sedentary life with games rather than one active as a cheerleader. But she had braces and a graphic T-shirt outlining several proofs that elves are real. It was pretty clear _this _was the world she belonged in.

Yata didn't particularly think she was attractive, but she was female nonetheless. What a face couldn't convince him to fear, an exposed chest and legs could. She spoke to him, then, pointing down in a way that clearly indicated her height advantage.

"Yatagarasu," she spat the code name that most people were familiar with using, "I've heard of you. Your days of domination are a thing of the past."

His whole impression of the setting changed in an instant. She had effectively just called him old! Looking down on him from above, she thought he was a washed up adult. This was no longer a matter of gender. It was about his pride. The opponent thought they could defeat him on his own home ground, and no one could get away with that!

Now solemn, Yata narrowed his eyes and spoke with a stern face, "Bring it on."

The challenger kissed her necklace that appeared to be some fantasy amulet while the defender pushed up his sleeves and laid one hand firmly on the sidelines. Each took hold of their mallet and crouched down in the the ready position. Cleavage made its clear debut, but Yata was focused entirely on the table. He would see nothing else until he had won.

Acting as referee for them, the meek, young boy set the puck down in the center circle of the table and counted down for them, "San, ni, ichi, GO!"

The battle was intense. Mallets and pucks flew from side to side across the air-powered rink as the competitors checked one another, made decisive shots on goal, and defended with every ounce of hand-eye coordination they possessed. Both of their unbelievable speed had resulted in more than one out-of-bounds call by the ref as well as a couple scraped knuckles.

First to reach ten points won, and she had Yata blocked to eight. Three times she scored in a row while he made none, so that she passed him up, going straight on to nine points. It was down to the wire, then, and Yata kicked his butt back in gear. He would not lose his title to some teenage girl from an uppity neighborhood! With fire behind that thought, he earned himself a completed shot. That made the score nine to nine. Whoever made the next one would be the winner.

Tension filled the air, along with nervous anticipation and fierce competition. The referee was calling for the final faceoff. Afraid to be caught between the opposing sides, he tenderly dropped the puck onto the center line. Everything rested on who could reach it first.

Ultimately, Yata was the winner. As soon as the game returned their respective cards, the girl stormed off with a huff and glowered. "Next time, Yatagarasu. Next time." She again pointed down at him.

Yata wasn't the least bit intimidated by her menacing behavior. He was still Shizume's best at air hockey. More than that, he looked up to the leader board just in time to watch his name slide into first place.

"All right!" He shouted, thinking this day was getting better and better every moment.

At the same time, the girl he had just defeated fell down a rank, causing her previous slot in fourth place to be automatically filled by a far more threatening name: Hayashi.

* * *

><p>Boxing. That was a good way to rack up a lot of points fast, if one was physically strong. The idea was simple. There was a punching bag that would measure how hard a person hit it. The player only got one punch at a time, but got three tries to get the highest score possible. The highest score determined the number of points set on the gamer's card so it was best to give it your all. Azami didn't think she was particularly strong, but she knew she was tougher than most girls her age. She tried not to use her aura as much as possible, though; that was cheating. Still, try as she may, she <em>was<em> a being with supernatural powers and that definitely was a contributing factor.

She fell into her fighting stance, wound up, and jabbed the punching bag square in its sensor. Her score of 392 soared up through the ranks to land her in third place right under Yatagarasu's 500 and some guy named BigDK with 405. Or she assumed it was a guy—what self-respecting female player would give themselves that kind of screen name? Frowning, she got into position for her next try. That time she managed 402.

No way was she going to lose to two guys with inflated egos, especially not on a day like today! Determination set on her face, she coiled herself for one last go. When the beginning buzzer went off, she stepped forward and put all of her punch right in the middle. The screen scrolled her up to second place this time and marked her card with her final score of 412. At first she scowled at the thought that she was still first loser, but then she smiled a little as she wandered away in search of her next game. She was fairly skilled in a lot of areas, but there were just some things where she would never be able to take Yata's crown.

Skateboarding was probably another, but she figured she could use what she had learned from him to benefit her at the Alpine Slalom Challenge, which was snowboarding. She hopped upon to the platform for that, scanned her card and let the machine choose a slope at random while she got onto the robotic snowboard that would simulate the feel of the ride down. When the horn sounded, she bent her knees and balanced as the beam tilted. The object was to make it to the bottom of the mountain as fast as possible while weaving around flags with your team's color. There were ramps on some of the higher levels and if the avatar caught bigger air or performed a trick on these, the player got bonus points. The computer selected one of these tracks for her.

There were fans that would blow air in her face to create the illusion of actually making a jump, and it was kind of invigorating so that she was incited to lean forward and speed up even more. She leaned back and forth to avoid large rocks and trees; although, she did wreck over one or two while keeping a sharp eye out for flags that might be hiding behind them. Before she knew it, she was crossing the finish line and listening to loud cheers over the speakers.

It was over much too quickly for her tastes. On a more normal day, she would have to spend more time on this game and try to master the more advanced courses. Or maybe, just maybe she'd try the real thing.

* * *

><p>From a distance Fushimi watched a nerdy boy with glasses that reminded him of half a dozen children's movies try to take on the claw. The toy that he was after—a gregarious, bubble like critter that looked somewhat like a snowman-teddybear with wings—had all the right potential to be quite accessible. Its round head was large enough to not slip between the fingers of the deliberately weakened grabber. It was located far enough from the edges that it could be reached on the tracks. Also, previous plays had loosened it well so that it could be extracted. Fushimi knew he still would not succeed.<p>

Sure enough, a red ball attached to the head by a spring blocked the claw just slightly, and the fingers slid worthlessly off the tip of the animal's ear. Disappointed, the twelve year old—whose growth had been stunted by an inactive lifestyle and looked nine—was determined to try again. He was prevented from reinserting his card into the machine by a girl who possessed her own animal ears.

"Let someone else have a turn already. You've been playing for ages," she complained, arms crossed below her chest. She was dressed mostly in black, except for a purple, pleated miniskirt and the studded belt with a check pattern that made her look like the rebel of a middle school that had suddenly been overrun with supernatural creatures. Werewolves to be exact, as the hoodie vest she wore over her long, purple hair, had pointed ears that actually appeared furry.

Briefly Fushimi wondered if he was the only one there not desperately attempting to dilute himself into a carbon copy of fictional stereotypes. Then he remembered Misaki.

As it was, the young boy who wasn't as young as he seemed shot back, "Just once more, I promise. I was seriously so close!"

The girl who was emo and extraordinary only in her attire wouldn't let him get away with it. "You've already said that a thousand times."

Their bickering worsened when she tried to shove him. In turn, he backed away, pointing out that he had brought wolfsbane with him to ward off evil threats like her. An exaggerated, fantasy battle that crossed fandoms was about to begin where spells and references from their respective worlds would fly as freely as cuss words between Misaki and the yakuza. People may have even gathered around to watch.

None of that interested Fushimi in the least, except for the small opening it had left at the game they were fighting over. Side-stepping their obnoxious confrontation, he inserted his card into the machine and waited for it to power up. The lights and sounds that emitted from it distracted the two tweens from their fight. Instead, they temporarily formed an alliance to protest the new arrival.

Before they could get out much of a complaint, however, they realized it was no use. He had already started, after all. They _had _stepped away from the game without laying any clear claim to it other than their verbal dispute. Plus, he was at least five years older than both of them, and his general disposition made them frightened to do anything against him.

Fushimi did not make an attempt at the oddly shaped, video game merchandise, opting rather for a blue thing in what looked like thermal pants and a nightcap. Not only had it been knocked quite loose, the hat also was not thoroughly sewn on so that he could hook one of the claws under its fabric. That eliminated the possibility that the toy would be dropped due to weakness.

Whatever the blue creature was fell gracefully into the dispenser, and Fushimi reached down to grab it with less than a little interest. The thing was poor quality and worthless to him. Besides, it was ugly as hell. Keeping it would only be bothersome. Carelessly tossing it into a nearby garbage bin, he gave more attention to his score card. To that point he had played six games, four of which he obtained scores high enough to make a sincere claim that playing was his honest intention in coming. Particularly with the mega bonus he had just earned, he could now easily seek out Misaki and still convince him they coincidentally bumped into one another.

Therefore, he listened closely for an overeager voice and set his sights on the largest commotion in the arcade.

Lining the wall across from the claw was a row of classic games. At its far end was where Tetris and Pachinko had been located. Towards the front could be found the more popular games to have withstood the test of time. It was from this general vicinity that came an enthusiastic shout from a vulgar mouth. Whether Misaki was threatening another person or a machine didn't matter much to Fushimi, only the voice of a person that he could recognize anywhere.

Making a beeline for that area, he didn't give attention to anything around him. Neither the games nor the people at them drew his attention, and he barely paid slight heed to their locations so as to make his path as direct as possible without colliding with any of them. Observing constantly vague colors and shapes in his peripheral vision, Fushimi stopped abruptly before a set of four consoles designed for racing other players. Only two were currently occupied, leaving the other cars to be computer generated during the race.

He recognized one of the players; it wasn't Misaki.

Stepping up close to the side of the row of consoles, Fushimi ensured that he could be completely concealed by its height and breadth before he let out a little sigh._ So that person really was here also. _It had been a close call, but it appeared she was too engrossed in the game to have noticed him back. _Hayashi. _Even without the green apparel and the neon-dyed tips of her hair, that person would still be recognizable. Her aura, but even more so the intensity that emanated from her being, were on a level equal to only one other person.

He probably should have expected to encounter her at some time that day, yet actually seeing her made him somewhat uncomfortable. _How was she doing? _He wondered, not about the games, but just about her life generally as he peeked around the edge of the machine. This was only the second time they had met since Emi's rescue. An itch developed over a familiar scar as memories of the past seeped into the fringes of his consciousness. Maybe it would be best if he avoided her altogether.

It didn't seem like he could will his feet to move—towards or away from her.

Lurching there in plain sight of everyone but the person he had gotten distracted monitoring, Fushimi considered a list of possibilities longer than the calculations for the claw game. Being so much like Yata, would she react to his new colors the same way he had? Would she even bring them up, seeing as they were all there without official business. He was pretty sure she would remember him...right?

He thought about going to talk to her. That itself was a strangely foreign feeling, as he didn't know what he would do or say in that situation. Usually, when he saw someone he knew someplace, he treated them hardly any different from a stranger: minimally. Hayashi he had barely known for three days. It wasn't like she was Misaki who he could easily approach and provoke because of a long history.

Then, the thought came to him that, for their sake, perhaps he should paint himself out as the enemy to her deliberately. It would be somewhat liberating, after all. He rarely found himself in such situations where his actions and feelings were so greatly influenced by another, so he thought it would likely be far less troublesome if she simply hated him like everybody else. With a conniving smile, he tricked himself into believing he would be doing everyone a favor by planning a way to sneak up on her and ruin her day. It might, in fact, turn out to give him nearly as much pleasure as doing the same for a particular someone else.

These thoughts halted suddenly when assaulted by something he truly could never have anticipated. Hayashi was there _with _someone. A young man approached her from behind, whispered into her ear, and then directed her attention to the shadow where Fushimi hid. As if concrete had not previously ladened down his feet to prevent him from moving, he froze upon making eye contact with the two of them.

* * *

><p>She stepped off the snowboarding platform and scanned the consoles that housed games to test the intellect. She was ready to take a break from the active participation type and exercise her brain for a while. Tetris seemed like a good choice, but it was currently occupied. She could do the sports car racing game across the aisle while she waited, and she'd be near enough to grab it once it became available. A guy wearing baggy shorts and a video game nerd shirt was standing against the back of one of the machines. His serious stare suggested he meant business and was looking for a challenger.<p>

Azami held up her card as she approached. "I'll take you on."

The teen gaped at her as if he didn't believe the card was actually hers. "You're a girl."

"Last I checked…" She looked down at her figure and then up at him again. "Yup, still a girl."

"These are video games…" he went on incredulously.

"No shit, genius. You're not from around here, are you?" She climbed into the driver's seat and glanced over her shoulder when he didn't do the same. "Are you coming or what?"

The male clambered into the machine next to hers, his amazed eyes never leaving her person. She rolled her own. This was a common problem when you were a gamer _girl_.

"It's gonna be really hard to drive if you don't quit staring at me. Not that it'll matter. I bet you suck at driving anyway."

That insult shook him out of his stupor, and he turned to the screen with a frown. So what if she had boobs? She was just another player, and he was gonna beat her like all the other losers before her.

They picked their respective hot rods, and the computer randomly chose a track for them. It happened to be through the woods, at night, in the rain. This would be pretty difficult for a novice, but the competitors at this tournament were all very skilled at their craft, including this game. The two drivers were neck and neck for the first half of the race. Then the track left the woods to go up a mountain pass, at which point the boy passed Azami.

"Aw, bad choice, picking that car. It's way too slow for this incline."

"Trash talking already? It's a little early to get cocky."

"You'll never catch up now," he responded.

Once they got over the peak, the weight of the car caused it to start picking up substantial speed again, so when Azami shifted gears she easily gained ground on her opponent.

"I picked a slower car on purpose because there's more weight and control when you go off-roading."

Fortunately, that kind of strategy was allowed in this game because there was a hairpin corner at the base of the mountain and rather than try to make the turn, she simply cut across the forest in between the two sections of road. When she ramped out of the other side, she skidded right into the other car and stopped him against the guardrail. She smirked as she sped down the road ahead of him.

"You may be fast, but it takes you just as long as me to reach your top speed from a full stop. See ya at the finish line!"

About the time she was on the home stretch, Kazuki approached her, touched her shoulder, and warned, "Behind you."

"Just a sec," she said and crossed the checkered line. The teen beside her went red in the face at her smug look and snatched his card so he could make a quick getaway before any other guys noticed his defeat. Azami grinned at Kazuki. "What's up?"

"There's a really creepy guy staring at you."

A wrinkle crossed her brow and her back straightened just the slightest. "Where?"

"Your eight o'clock."

Remaining casual, Azami pulled her hair over her right shoulder and tilted her head a little so she could sneak a peek over her left. There, right where Kazuki said he'd be, was a skinny masculine figure spying on her from around the corner of a machine. Though this was somewhat unnerving, she easily recognized the emo hair, glasses, and dull expression.

She turned to her partner. "Oh, it's cool, I know him." He gave her a perplexed look as if to ask why she would ever get to know someone so unsettling. In response she cracked a smile and patted his shoulder, saying, "It's okay. Go play. I'll meet up with you later and tell you about it."

Unsure at first, he turned to go and glanced back at her a couple paces later. She waved him on, and when he was out of sight, she looked to the machine once more, smiled a bit, and gave a tiny wave that she hoped said, "Hey Fushimi." He barely stuck around to see it before he ducked out of sight around the cluster of consoles and went the opposite direction. With a somewhat confused shrug, she noticed that Tetris had opened up, and she briefly checked the score board. With that last victory her name had been bumped up to fourth place. First place was currently being occupied by none other than Yatagarasu.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hope you all enjoyed this! Next chapter will bring real conflict. Please look forward to it.<strong>_

_***For anyone who was shocked by that statement, Neko is Arait's cat, and she only stole a model of the sword of Damocles. But it's fun let the imagination get carried away anyhow.**_

_**See you next time!**_


	3. Nerd with an Axe

_**Hola. Here we are back again with the next installment of our Side Story. Not much random to say this time, except that the sword of Damocles that had been lost by the cat Neko has been found after Scepter 4 went on a grand adventure crawling through caves (under Arait's bed) and scaling cliffs (behind a dresser). It was raining outside (even though we were inside), and Fushimi was particularly annoyed that day. Aside from that, Arait also let her hair grow for too long. It started to get super shaggy and emo-like, so much so that she successfully styled it like Fushimi's blue clan hair for two days. Having disturbed herself, she promptly headed to the salon to have it tidied up.**_

_**That said, please enjoy the real story you came here to read...**_

* * *

><p>Having brushed Hayashi's subtle greeting aside conceitedly as if it meant nothing to him, Fushimi deliberately went the opposite direction. He left her vicinity as wide a berth as possible, making his way toward the other end of the arcade in somewhat of a daze but never lost sight of his original goal. The target of those intentions, after finishing an intense air hockey battle for first place, was so pumped that he figured he needed to follow it up with an equally active game.<p>

Excited energy overflowed from Yata's every pore, since the day was off to such a great start. He was well on his way to winning, and he had performed excellently on everything he had attempted so far. This place - and everything inside it - was as familiar to him as the back of his hand or the inside of his pocket. There was no doubt that everything else would go smoothly. It had been a month and a half since he had thought a day was, all around, upbeat.

The uncontainable enthusiasm revealed itself with a fist slamming into the nearest table as Yata declared, "I'm gonna win this thing!"

A tall man looked down at him in confusion with chocolate eyes. With a giant, rubber mallet in one hand and untamed, spiky hair he totally looked like an overgrown teenager, even though he must have been in his twenties. The mallet was used for whacking computer operated creatures that made appearances in random locations on the table Yata had just punched, and the man had actually been having considerable success at it before being startled. Since then, he had completely lost his concentration and admittedly felt somewhat intimidated by the determined expression of the red clansman who had seemingly just launched a challenge at him.

Kazuki, who easily recognized Homra's vanguard, decided laying first claim to a single machine in the whole arcade was not worth starting a battle of auras. "You want a turn?" He offered, holding the mallet out to someone much younger and shorter than himself like a child surrendering to a bully.

"Eh?" Yata replied with a dumb look on his face because a misunderstanding left both of them completely unaware of the situation.

As a series of descending whistles indicated Kazuki had missed enough shots that the game was terminating, he grabbed his card from the slot and clarified, "You can have it."

Realizing, then, what kind of impression he had made - an impression that he had sworn to never make again - Yata tried to explain, "Eeeeeh? No! I'm not taking it away from you! You play. I'm not gonna be some cheater who wins by making other people lose!"

Kazuki let out half a chuckle since that was exactly what Yata had done unintentionally. A goofy smile crossed his face, and then he simply walked away, stating, "Go ahead. I was at my limit anyhow." He had heard enough about that boy from Azami to know better than to fan a self fueling fire.

For a while, Yata paused to process all that had just happened, but he was interrupted by a tiny kid and his mom. "Are you playing this game, Mister?" The boy asked so respectfully that Yata felt insulted. He wasn't a mister yet! He was only nineteen!

Seeing as he still stubbornly refused to touch the machine that he had accidentally taken by force, though, he responded - polite as he could, for the sake of the mom, "N-no. Go ahead." Then, he too wandered off, eyes scanning for what he would play next. He had already done all of his favorites, all of the easy ones, and all of the super high scoring ones. After his encounter with the female champion of another arcade and the mistake with the young man right afterward, he didn't particularly feel like playing something that would involve an opponent.

Toward the center of the arcade, he spotted an unoccupied console and went to play there. It was one of those restaurant games that he used as training for some of his part time jobs waiting. A variety of programmed customers would come in and order food. Just like a real waiter, you would seat them, serve them, clean up after them, and take their payment. Neglect of any customers would result in them being unsatisfied and loss of points. Yata thought it was a fairly decent depiction of reality.

It was Yata's proclamation of game center domination that Fushimi overheard from across the way. After his own distraction, however, it wasn't until the former began the restaurant game that he found him. As in the case with Azami, Fushimi did not approach the person he sought. Unlike the previous situation, though, he immediately thought of the alternative this time.

Unnoticed by the gamer, he circled around to the back of the machine and pried open a plastic panel. There he filtered through a mess of wires searching for one that admins used to restore or repair damaged software, one that would give him direct access to the hard drive without taking the whole machine apart. That connected easily into his PDA. A grin spread across his face as a terminal full of code appeared on the screen projected into the air. This was what he was good at.

Throughout the whole facility played the same six hour long playlist of Commadore 64 generated soundtracks that the owner had started at the beginning of the tournament and would probably be repeated once before everything was said and done. It was a fitting selection of music for a bunch of obsessive game otaku and one hacker. The latter allowed himself a brief moment to wonder how long it would take Yata to realize.

In such a game, customers of all sorts made their appearance, all sorts of squishy, pixelated, poor quality graphics characters. That included cheerleaders in pigtails, old men on dates with their decrepit wives, and families that needed highchairs whose babies spilled everywhere. For that reason, Yata didn't find it at all strange that an average looking man came in with nothing distinguishing except for an axe and ordered nothing but a soda. He did think maybe that guy looked familiar from somewhere, but he had played so many games on so many different occasions, he had no reason to believe he hadn't just simply remembered a part of this game.

The next thing to strike the player as odd was the birthday party. Two adults came in with thirteen children. Every one of them had something different to order in addition to enough cake and pop to cover the floor and the walls in frosting. It was definitely a challenging event Yata had never come across before, and he thought it must either be a new level or an update he hadn't known about. Either way, he would conquer the birthday party and still keep all the other clients happy.

Around the time that he was mopping up a spilled beverage, the man with the axe started to order a wide variety of things. That was when it became particularly difficult. No matter who came in or how many they were, the man with the axe demanded exclusive attention. He incessantly requested things at inopportune times and collected piles of empty plates that would attract flies if not handled promptly. He couldn't just place a complete order at once, either. One item at a time, he would call Yata back to wait on him frequently. He was so disruptive that other people were becoming increasingly dissatisfied. But Yata could not get him to simply pay hits check and leave.

After reaching a certain level, the man with the axe placed an order for cheesy breadsticks and stir fried squash with bamboo shoots. Yata stopped in bewilderment. It was a fast food establishment. The only options were hamburger, nachos, cake, pop, or milkshake. There was no known command to prepare vegetables. Blinking, he stared at the screen for a while like maybe he was reading it wrong or there was some kind of mistake. Stir fried vegetables?

* * *

><p>As the day went on, Azami had to more actively avoid Yata as he moved around the room to games that weren't his favorite, but would earn him points to stay at the top. The nice thing was, whether he was doing well or poorly, he was very vocal about it so she was able to stay out of his line of sight without trying too hard. In the back of her mind, though, she knew that she would probably eventually have to face off with him since she was steadily gaining on his score.<p>

"Za-nee-chan!" she heard a young voice address her.

She had been crossing over to the other end of the arcade where Yata had started out, but at that point she turned to see one of the local kids had snuck up on her. She had told the boys of the Red Clan upon their first meeting at the arcade (and she hadn't lied) that she watched out for the young ones who hung out there from time to time. In fact, over time a good number of them had begun to trust her and view her as an older sister figure.

"Hey, Mai! Are you here by yourself? Where's your brother?"

Mai was a skinny 8-year-old that had started out being dragged to the arcade by her teenage brother when she was 5. Although she really wasn't old enough to know what kind of person she was yet, she had quickly taken to a tomboy persona. Her dark brown hair was long, but it was pulled into a low ponytail under a backwards baseball cap and all the colors of her clothing were gender neutral.

"He's here. He's in the tournament. Mamma got called to work and he couldn't stay home with me so I had to come. He won't let me play, though."

"He won't? That jerk."

Mai nodded her agreement and then shyly looked to her tennis shoes. Anybody could see that she was bored, maybe even a little scared with the more than normal number of unfamiliar faces. Azami could empathize with those feelings.

"Come on, you can play with me," she offered. "I haven't done basketball yet. Do you know how to play that?"

"Yeah, I played with aniki before."

"Okay, we'll take turns shooting, but we gotta be fast so we get more points."

"I'm ready!"

When the machine registered the card, it began funneling basketballs toward the two players. They alternated who stood before the basket and together made a better than average score. It wasn't anything phenomenal, but Mai's confidence improved each time Azami admitted "Oops, almost!" or "That was my bad!" and then praised "Two points!" or "Swish!" That was the most important thing to Azami anyhow; more important than the score.

When the buzzer went off signifying the end of the round, a teenage boy approached them. "Mai, stop bugging Azami-chan."

Azami waved off his words. "I invited her. She was helping me improve my score, right, Mai?"

"Yeah! We're the best girl team in Shizume!"

Her brother cracked a smile. "I'm going for something to drink. You coming or what?"

"I'm coming!" she called and then turned back to the older female. "Sorry for bugging you."

"Hey…" Azami crouched in front of the girl and squeezed her smaller hand. "Don't ever let him tell you you're bugging people by playing games, even if he is your big brother. You can be any kind of girl you want. And if you want to be a gamer then you keep coming to this arcade and playing with me, okay?"

Mai gave her a crooked 8-year-old smile and hugged her. "Arigatou, Za-nee-chan."

Over the tiny shoulder, Azami caught sight of a white shirt and red sweater. She pulled away hurriedly and stood while also trying not to look too rushed.

"I gotta go, but I'll see you later, okay?"

Luckily for her, Yata was too engrossed in starting a new game to even see her all but somersault behind a slot machine. She wasn't the only one he missed, though, because Fushimi also came up behind the skater, observed the game, and then passed him by with an evil smirk on his face. Yata didn't even blink. That boy really was too oblivious at times. But hey, if Fushimi Saruhiko could walk right by him without being seen, so could the Green Girl.

She skirted around the cluster of casino themed arcade games until she was standing behind the red clansman. Following the same path Fushimi took, she started to ease past him, but a loud protest from him caused her to take a step backward. The console Yata stood at made a sound of dissatisfaction on behalf of the customers and some points floated upward across the screen to disappear where they would never be regained.

This was not a hard game; Yata shouldn't have been losing points already. Aazmi squinted at the screen, staying out of his peripherals but close enough she could pick out the problem. The source of the unrest was a very plain looking avatar with an axe who sat alone at a table and kept calling Yata back to order ridiculous amounts of food. He definitely didn't fit in this game which clearly meant that someone was messing with the thick-headed boy. It wasn't her and if it wasn't her there was only one other person it could be.

_Boys…_ she thought and then, continuing on her original path, she moved around behind this group of machines as well in search of something new to play. The boxy consoles were arranged in a circle of sorts and as such there was a small "v" shaped between each one. It was through one of these that a flash of light caught her eye. A flash of light from a PDA, to be exact. Fushimi, with his perfectly thin frame, had slipped through one of these v's and was crouched on the floor behind Yata's machine.

She had to admit, she found herself being drawn in by the curiosity of how he had pulled this trick off. There was no one around so Azami quietly hopped up onto the panels that housed the buttons for two of the machines, standing on the edges so she didn't damage anything. However, Fushimi was holding his phone in his lap and she still couldn't see anything he was doing. She could reach the top of the machines from where she was so she swung inward and braced her feet against one of the boxes and her back against the other. Now in a midair sitting position above him, she could see the holographic screen suspended above the PDA and watch as colored code scrolled across, flashing key words and numbers like "Waitress" or "6 cheeseburgers" which told her all that she needed to know. The console he was hooked into, namely Yata's, emitted another noise of displeasure meaning that the gamer's score had just declined some more.

With her arms folded across her chest and a grin on her face, she jokingly scolded, "That's a pretty cruel prank to play on someone like that."

The sound of a voice behind him jolted Fushimi so that his shoulders shook and his PDA leaped right out of his lap. That being the most important object he possessed at the time, he hurried forward to catch it, vigilantly guarding its connection to the machine in front of him. In the act, he accidentally hit the return key, thereby prematurely sending the order he had been preparing for Yata. Of all possibilities, that really was the least harm that could have been done by the sudden imposter, since he had still managed to ask for six cheeseburgers with no pickles.

Even so, he turned his head to look at the annoyance with a glare only to find Azami. She really shouldn't have been able to see him back there, but the way she was propped up above him between two games like a rock climber indicated she had specifically been looking to find him. In just a moment all proof that he had been startled at all was hidden behind a blank, somewhat sulky expression, and he looked away from her shortly thereafter. He had already talked to her earlier.

It wasn't like he was being that cruel. Wasn't Yata still going to get a halfway decent score on the game? He could have sabotaged it completely had he wanted to - introduced a virus, or simply pulled the plug. There was no harm in messing around with Yata a little so long as he was still in first place anyhow. Maybe if he had made his old friend lose entirely that would have been something to complain about, but hadn't Yata done just fine? Too fine, apparently, as he still had yet to recognize the avatar Fushimi used to use in Junior High.

_How had Hayashi known if what he was doing was cruel in the first place? _This question came to him as he was trying to ignore the eyes staring down his back by placing the rest of the other she interrupted. He didn't think she could read code, could she? The possibility unnerved him even more than her appearance had, as he wondered how much of what he wrote she could understand from up above. It certainly was different from the look of amazement Yata would make when gazing at the inverted words from the back side of the floating screen.

His hands shook a bit as he was trying to type. He couldn't tell if it was his distracted mind or his uneasy body, but a discongruancy between the firing speeds of each were mixing up his words. It didn't seem like she could tell, so he refocused and carried on.

setOrder( ( ().toString()), "13 milkshakes, 4 hot dogs");

Reading what he had just typed in white letters against a pale blue background, Fushimi realized the only reason Azami had been easily able to recognize the contents of his order was because Terminal automatically changed the color of words in a string or String object. Basically, that meant anything between quotation marks was displayed in red. That made it stand out particularly, and anyone could easily understand what "13 milkshakes" means.

No longer uneasy, he scolded without turning his attention to her, "You're wasting your time if you want to stand a chance to win against him."

Instead of allowing herself to be provoked by him, the girl responded with a grin, "You owe me an order of cheesy breadsticks."

_A reference from two years ago? Was that supposed to be some sort of peace offering? _If so, it had worked. Fushimi felt his guard lowering ever so slightly and was suddenly inclined to give a reply.

"I thought you said this was 'cruel.' Breadsticks aren't even a valid option," he mentioned while returning her smile. His own was mildly laced with malice as if subtly asking, _why hadn't I thought of that?_

Though she briefly seemed sheepish, the confident girl quickly defended, "I didn't _tell _you to use that."

_Huh? _While Fushimi didn't verbally reply in this way, the confusion in his eyes showed that he hadn't picked up on her sarcasm. Instead, he was left wondering if he had entirely misinterpreted what she had said in the first place. What if she had been asking for real breadsticks? Was it lunchtime already?

"But you just said..." he muttered in a way that faded off at the end.

"Come on, you're supposed to be the smart one," she teased with a feigned complaint.

That made it clear enough for him. She actually found this funny and wanted a part of it. Well, it was going to be a pain for her if she kept herself suspended a meter in the air. Not that he cared one way or another. At least she had provided a semi-interesting idea. Misaki would definitely be taken by surprise if the game requested something he didn't know how to serve. Just that easily, he was once again consumed by altering the code to make it possible.

"That does sound good right now, though."

This time, the words came from right beside him, and suddenly the small space felt exponentially more crowded. His face became warmer than before looking at how close hers now was. Even though he tried to reinstate a bit of distance, he was tied in place by a very short cable. There was no escape for him, and since he didn't necessarily want to make her leave, right by his shoulder was where she would stay.

"And a takoyaki soda," she added, poking at the floating screen as if she didn't feel awkward about the proximity at all.

Clammy palms gave him the impression that he must be blushing, and he immediately looked away with an irritated click of his tongue.

"Go ask that guy for some," he said unpleasantly as if hiding his uncomfortable feeling from himself behind inconsiderate jabs. At the same time, he typed on the projected keyboard in his lap so that the screen displayed in red, "Cheesy breadsticks, stir fried squash with bamboo shoots," surrounded by the rest of his code jibberish in white.

Surprised by the biting tone, she drew her head back sharply and questioned sincerely, "Who?"

Fushimi didn't answer; although, he did submit her requested food item through to Yata's machine. In the bottom corner of his display, feedback printed out to a console which revealed that the restaurant staff had received their input with phrases like:

cWaitress approached cCustomer[14]

cWaitress accepted order for cCustomer[14]

Then all activity suspended while the program waited for "cWaitress," namely Yata, to do something. That was around the time Fushimi would have expected to hear the furious shout of a boy who, if not recognizing the plain avatar with an axe, had at least recognized the only person who would hack an arcade game just to order vegetables. Two references should have been enough.

As it was, the computer generated soundtrack, chirping of nearby games, and other roudy customers completely drowned out the subtle, bewildered, "Eh?" that Yata uttered.

Azami, for her part, sat quietly and tried to deduce what guy Fushimi expected to buy her food. Why the abrupt, sour change in his tone? They were having fun messing around with Yata together, so he couldn't be implying that guy. For one thing, asking Yata to buy her food would be a disaster, and for another, mentioning Yata wouldn't have brought on that level of displeasure in his normally monotonous voice. _So who else could he be talking about? _

"Kazuki?" That had to be it. Fushimi had seen him with her earlier.

He didn't react much to that either, maybe having acknowledged it with a slight grunt, but his mind seemed to be preoccupied with the activities on the PDA before him. Strangely enough, he had put aside Terminal for the time being and opened a browser instead. On the internet he was accessing some kind of cloud storage or backup server, looking for something he couldn't keep on a work issued phone because it was actually a spyware that could compromise the integrity of their clan's confidential data. Azami didn't realize this while watching him, even though she did vaguely recognize the icon of many swaying and entangled trees from somewhere.

Of course, she had seen more than one logo in her life that she didn't bother to remember. The cold shoulder treatment he was giving her was somewhat of an unexpected put-off that took precedence over whatever he was doing. Why the sudden disdain for Kazuki? Was it because he was an opposing clansman? They were in the neutral zone, though; colors didn't matter here, only gaming skills!

Then, it occurred to her: her guy friends in the clan would react similarly if they saw her with a boy she never told them about. Kazuki, Shun, and Souma-san were particular about what men she was with outside the clan. This was due to her past.

But Fushimi hadn't known her that long, and she really didn't take him for the protective, big brother type. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Most males tended to speak their opinions more openly; this was not so with Fushimi. Even with those who were the silent type, through her previous career she had learned how to tell what men were thinking, but this boy did not exhibit many of the tells the others did. She was never really sure if he enjoyed her company or just barely tolerated her.

She thought about leaving to give him his space - he had pretty much told her to go talk to her fellow clansman instead - but hesitantly decided to try one more time. "He's not my boyfriend, you know...?"

"You use his first name." Having selected several files to download, Fushimi gave Azami his attention in the interval. It was a brief, forward statement, yet it contained all the meaning behind all his behavior that day.

"Yeah, but that's because he's been looking out for me since I joined the Green Clan. We're not together, though. He's like my big brother-and I don't mean that in the romance novel way where I say that and then we wind up together. That'd be gross. Plus he's married, and I don't think his wife likes to share."

"I don't think he likes me." The antisocial boy said this, not because it really mattered to him whether he gained the approval of a random green clansman or not, but because he figured he should probably play some role in sustaining a conversation. What Azami had explained provided much recordable information that was previously unknown - such as his color affiliation, his non-blood relation to her, and his marital status - but none of it really merited to be commented upon. Therefore, he had stated a random fact on the subject.

Reiterating what she had just said before, Azami justified, "Well yeah. 'Big brother,' protective, you know? And you were basically being a creeper."

Just then, the game he had been downloading from online storage opened on his device with all of his saved data and a complete profile. Granted, that "profile" gave the impression of a total novice since the avatar hadn't been personalized in the least and the account name was as generic as, "user_." The main reason Azami recognized it as a character Fushimi had put some time and effort into leveling up was because she had seen him bother to import that little guy into the restaurant game.

In addition, she recognized the setup of this app. In the middle of a forest was a plaza-like space in which several 3D characters walked around. It had the feel of a MMORPG, and even though there were thousands of those, she had the feeling she had played - or at least watched people play - this one previously. Once it had finished initializing, Fushimi grabbed some official looking information from the settings menu and switched back into the one from which he was altering code.

Unable to abate her curiosity in spite of the semi-important, real life conversation they had sort of been having, Azami inquired, "What are we doing now?"

While Fushimi's first reaction was to retort that there was no "we" involved in the coding, he reminded himself that she had been coming up with food ideas. As expected, she hadn't realized that introducing products not originally from the game would result in an unexecutable line of code that would make the entire game freeze up. There was nowhere to proceed from there. They couldn't place another order.

That meant, in order to prevent Yata from reporting the game as defective to the arcade owner - which would either result in him simply retrieving his score card and moving on, or the owner would come behind the console to reset it - they had to keep him playing some other way. Within the code, Fushimi forced the program to stop and reload. From the player's point of view, this would look like the screen suddenly cutting to black. However, instead of the restaurant game restarting, he had set it to call open the MPG game instead.

Very briefly, he explained, "That game ended. Maybe he'll recognize jcube."

The name of a challenge within the MPG triggered Azami's memory, and she exclaimed, "Oh, JUNGLE! I used to watch my brother and the kids at school play this."

Though his mind had become occupied with setting things up, Fushimi did inquire with some interest, "Did you play?"

"Not much. I only had a middle school issued phone," she said something that could have been a decent explanation if the two boys hadn't also played the game using only PDAs their school had given them. After that, she asked, "What are you gonna do with that?"

The screen shook then, as if having been impacted by a meteor or shock wave, and all the avatars walking around the generic looking boy with a conspicuous axe faded into a blurry background. A challenge had been issued and a dual begun. With a somewhat excited look on his face, Fushimi gave only a short answer before delving into the coming battle:

"Catch Misaki's attention."

* * *

><p>Yata was convinced the game was completely broken. Having first thought it was more difficult because of an upgrade, he also decided the glitches were probably caused by the same upgrade being faulty. That was all he could assume when the client that had been a pain in his ass for the last few levels suddenly ordered foods that weren't even available. What was more, the game froze entirely, so it wasn't like he had unlocked a new level with greater variety. No matter what buttons - or combinations thereof - that he pushed, the pixelated waitress would not move.<p>

Then, he got mad, and he kicked it. The damn machine was wasting his time. Regardless of how many times people said kicking the computer doesn't jar anything loose, it still made him feel better to vent. He reached down to retrieve his score card, but the machine had swallowed it, unable to return it due to the crash. Just when he was about to shout clear across the arcade to get the owner's help, the screen went dark, along with all the other lights on the console.

"Oi!" He cried, deeply concerned by the way things were turning out.

Again the projected outcome took a dramatic turn when the console rebooted into a totally different setting: the forest. Yata rubbed his eyes in disbelief. _This wasn't a scene right outside the restaurant, was it? _That wouldn't make sense, though; no one puts a fast food establishment in the middle of the woods. Furthermore, he felt like he barely recognized this setting from somewhere. Was it... JUNGLE?

But that program was a virus and a pretty malicious one, at that. He couldn't imagine this was just some secret ending to the game or a hidden way to earn tons of bonus points. On the other hand, what would those people want with a simple arcade tournament? The only way to find out was to keep playing. Straightening himself before the console once more, ready for whatever was thrown at him, Yata pressed Start to accept the challenge offered.

The same, bland looking guy who had pestered him all throughout the second half of the restaurant game appeared again on the screen in slightly better definition. _What's with this guy? _Yata wondered. _He looks completely uncustomized, like he's only played for a day or two, and who chooses their first and only item to be an axe? _

At last, all the pieces fell together in his mind, seeing all the clues assembled into one memory from eight years ago, or so. That guy was Fushimi. This occurred to Yata right as five 3D cubes appeared, spinning, on the screen, followed by a deck of various cards. Yata had collected cards as a kid; he knew the concept of trading and fighting with them. What he had never mastered in all this time was turning the different rows of the cubes so that all nine squares of each color were on one side.

That wasn't fair. Fushimi knew there was no way he could win this! As numbers flashed onto the display, counting down the time until they started, Yata furiously slammed his hands down on the table-like surface.

"Saruhiko you fuckin' bastard, get out here and face me like a man!"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Aha, the three who have been avoiding one another meet at last! And as expected, conflict must ensue. Stay tuned for the next chapter! Btw, Arait really likes cliffhangers, if you couldn't tell. :D<strong>_


	4. Pride and Scars

_**Good morning everyone. Nice to see you again, and Happy Thursday. Kateracks and Arait are back again with an other installment of arcade madness. However, before getting started, there is something that must be addressed.**_

_**Kateracks: To our anonymous guest reviewer, if you've decided to read on further: Ha ha ha, you're funny. Thank you for your concern, but as luck would have it, I'm already past 18 and fairly proficient in the Perv Language. I guess I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned this or maybe I thought that people who knew anything about K and our stories would be mature enough not to assume that meaning right off the bat. Or at least not in a "T" rated story, at any rate. I guess I thought wrong. That being the case, as I'm sure there are other people out there who wondered the same thing you did, we will be changing the title of this story. Or rather, spelling it out to avoid totally wrong assumptions. After all, it's not the title that matters, but the actual content. All that being said, I suppose if the only criticism you had was our title, we must be doing a fair job of writing. We'd like it if you mentioned something about the plot itself next time, if you decide to stick with us. :)**_

_**Arait would only embarrass herself trying to reply to that, so she has chosen instead to talk to mst88. Ah, I must admit that I'm casting aside my moral standards a bit to say that I was pleased when you called our story "epic." (After all, in spite of its more modern usage, I still cling to the original definition of the word which has to do with a tale of heroes being even more heroic that heroes normally are. Fushimi, who does not believe in heroes, being in this story somewhat renders it incapable of being "epic" according to the original sense of the word.) That said, it did make me squirm and giggle in glee that you would give such an enormous compliment! Thank you! Um...I'm going to say, yes, Fushimi was a bit jealous of Kazuki. He is not aware of it himself, though, and might become frustrated if you keep pointing it out.**_

_**Okay, responses made. Get on with the story!**_

* * *

><p>"Saruhiko you fuckin' bastard, get out here and face me like a man!"<p>

Hearing this shout, Fushimi promptly closed the screens of his PDA, and passed it to his accomplice as if it were an object of little to no value. "That's my cue," he said as he rose to his feet with a tone that indicated he was content to be cussed out. There was a gratified smirk on his face that Azami didn't think she had ever seen before. His goal had been to 'get Misaki's attention,' but she was surprised by the _kind _of attention he had been vying for. Even though vulgarity was common from that mouth, Yata's harsh words should have been at least a bit discouraging. Rather his eyes held more of a crazed mirth.

It reminded Azami somewhat of hitting the first high after a long streak of going cold, and that sent an empty, worried feeling through her. When Fushimi left their temporary hideout, slipping between two machines with a confidence uncharacteristic of his normally introverted self, she knew she needed to follow to see what came next. She had, of course, not yet been privy to witnessing how the relationship of the once-upon-a-time-best friends had changed.

"You called, Mi-sa-ki~?" Fushimi greeted, words slick and deliberately chilling.

"-the hell are _YOU* _doing here?" The impetuous response was not one of shock at encountering a former, fellow clansman. Instead it was possessive, full of hatred and bitterness caused by pain. One of his hands already balled into a clenched fist while the other thumbed at his nose defiantly to accompany the demand.

Fushimi wasn't riled up by the short red's passion and replied with a carefree shrug, "Why go to a game center if not to play games?"

The way it was said was creepy enough to make Yata shudder, suspecting he had come to "play" with people rather than the arcade. It had probably been some sort of twist on two similar words that the impulsive boy hadn't fully grasped or a subtle reference to the game he had just hacked. Finding himself more than a little disturbed trying to decipher the transformed thoughts of a person he used to know well, Yata scoffed in disgust and retorted according to his first instinct.

"This is a serious tournament for serious gamers! It's no place for a traitor like _YOU! _So get lost already."

Having accurately predicted a reaction such as that, Fushimi adeptly retrieved his score card for approval and held it too close to his target's face mid-outburst. Taking the card, Misaki examined it carefully. He actually had gotten some pretty good scores, and they were all for games he was known to play from time to time. The cumulative score was also relatively high. Still nowhere near his own level - partly because of skill and partly just from the number of hours more that he had played that day - but it was definitely better than average. That prompted the angry gamer to glance at the leader board.

His own name was now in second place, Yatagarasu having been replaced in the top rank by BigDK because of the incident Fushimi had caused with the restaurant game. That anger he held in for the time being while he finished reading the top 10. Hayashi was in 4th, and sure enough, the 7th place slot read "Fushimi-kun," that being the name that the arcade owner had registered on the card without the player's permission. Yata was the first of all three teens to realize that the youngest among them was doing particularly well. After all, it wasn't like Fushimi had bothered to look at that board for anything other than monitoring Yata's score.

Deciding that he must actually be there for the tournament, Yata figured it would be best to hold back their personal quarrel in this neutral, public space. He grit his teeth and gradually loosened his tight fists as he turned to walk away.

Fushimi, however, was not about to let it end so soon. He called provocatively at the back of the boy who was already struggling to maintain control, "Mi-sa-ki~!" That one had long since given up on friendly gestures passing between the two of them, but he knew exactly what words would keep Yata's angry hatred burning toward him. If there was a thin line between love and hate, then he'd much rather balance on a tightrope than turn his back to a threat.

"Where are they now?" He questioned. It was vague and derisive, but its implications were clear to someone as related to the situation as Yata. "Your make-believe family, that man you called a hero, and the one who held everyone together. Hadn't you told me that one day you'd prove to me that it's true? Well? Where are they now?"

Even though he did not immediately turn back to face the taunter, Yata was stopped dead in his tracks. Others may not have been able to perceive the subtle signals that he was beginning to lose his temper, but someone who had known him for so many years, someone who had meticulously analyzed through observation exactly what made him tick, could easily see. His shoulders trembled with fury as he tried to calm his stuttering breath. Every muscle was tense, poised to strike, and a faint red glowed around his knuckles despite his having no intention to cause an aura disturbance during a peaceful, game tournament.

These small indications gave Fushimi a sense of satisfaction; they were marks of his increasing success, about to deliberately dive headlong off one side of the thin line he constantly walked. He would only need a little shove now. Then the thrill would come.

After pausing a brief moment to feel the heavy tension weighing down the air, Fushimi dealt the blow. "That Mik-"

"Shut up, Saru." The words were low; they were not shouted but, rather, growled with detest. He was holding back for now, calling to mind what Kusanagi had said that morning as he was rushing out the door, "Don't get carried away now, Yata-chan." But it was not okay for _anyone, _especially not the idiot traitor, to insult the late Mikoto.

"Oh? Are you upset, Misaki?" The teasing continued. "_Before _wouldn't there have been a lecture about Homra pride...or something?"

With his over exaggerated gestures Fushimi looked conceited as it befitted the third ranking official of a governmental organization, even dressed down in his preppy clothes, which brought a come back to Yata's mind. Shaking a fist in the other's direction, he burst out, "_Pride _is something _YOU _could never understand! There with all those paper pushers and wannabe cops." He spat those last words as if Scepter 4 were the Devil incarnate, and Fushimi was glad to be just out of range of the saliva droplets.

Grasping his heart facetiously, Saruhiko then proceeded to laugh. "At least I have a job. Can you even afford to play in this tournament without foregoing this month's rent?"

"THAT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS!" The shouting began.

Fushimi remained composed and scheming with his quick response, "Oh but it is. An off-duty member of the Special Police Force apprehended an out of control, super powered individual who released his aura after infiltrating a peaceful, gaming event. Without proper proof of entry, that's what the report will say, right?"

"Everything was just fine until you showed up. Shoulda stayed home and saved us all the trouble of seeing your ugly face!"

"Couldn't. If I hadn't come, the whole place would burn down. This is actually a service to the community."

The way the slick tongued antagonist twisted facts to support his own cause finally broke Yata's last shred of restraint.

"The only one who's gonna get burned here is _YOU!_ " Yata declared and in a few swift steps he had Fushimi by the shirt collar.

The hand at his side glowed red as flames sparked across his knuckles when he clenched his fist in preparation to deck the taller boy. At the same time, Fushimi merely stood still as if to take it with a crazed smile on his face while blue danced across the fingers that twitched at the ready to draw the knives Azami now knew he hid in his sleeve. Those of the growing audience encircling them who could see the colors gaped in surprise.

_This is gonna be bad._ There were way too many innocents around for this kind of exchange. But it seemed the boys were far past the logic of stopping for this fact and since Azami had _kind of_ helped provoke it, she decided now was time to step in.

Well, actually, she dashed in and that's when things happened a little too fast for her to counter it all. The boys were so engrossed in each other that when she wedged herself in between them, Yata grew even more enraged, thinking that Fushimi had shoved him. He didn't even realize that the figure pushing against him nor the command of "That's enough!" was female until it was too late to stop his punch.

Azami cried out when a flame-tinted fist smashed into the left side of her jaw. Luckily, she had had enough foresight to call on her own aura as she moved between the two boys so her face didn't melt off, but the hit still hurt like hell and the force knocked her to the floor. She hissed through her teeth in an attempt to sate the desire to yell profanities while she cradled the side of her face that was already beginning to swell.

An angry shout of "_Hey!_" came from the ring of spectators to Azami's right, and Kazuki stepped to the fore. A deep scowl turned his normally happy-go-lucky face into something intimidating. So abnormal was it that Azami threw a hand out to halt any further movements he may have planned to make. They really didn't need a war of colors starting in the middle of these civilians, a good majority of which were younger than them.

"It's okay. It was an accident," she assured him as she climbed back to her feet.

Unfortunately, damage had already been done. The fight had gained quite the attention, and at that point the manager arrived on the scene. He was at the back of the pack, though. He couldn't yet see who had caused the ruckus, but they could hear him giving a warning to everyone nearby.

"Let's break this up, guys. We don't want the police to get called to our arcade tournament."

Before he was within visual range, Azami stepped toward the two boys and suggested to Yata, "If you don't want to get disqualified, you should probably make yourself scarce."

He only gave her a blank stare, still shell shocked that she was even standing in front of him, let alone that he had just punched her in the face. Regardless, she had given him a fair piece of advice so whether he abided by it or not was his choice from then on; she wasn't going to stick around to get in trouble. But she couldn't leave the two of them to get into it again. She latched onto Fushimi's wrist and dragged him with her as she hurried off the scene.

Kazuki followed after them demanding, "_What_ is going on?"

The female paused long enough to say, "I'll tell you later, but right now we need some crowd control." Meaning they needed to come up with a cover for the gossip that may results from people seeing the show of auras.

Kazuki watched her disappear into the gamers with the sulky boy in tow and then shrugged to himself. What was _he_ supposed to say? But when he turned around and saw a bunch of teens staring at him and after his partner, he conjured a quick dismissal.

"And that, ladies and gentleman, is what happens when you cheat! Move along now, back to your gaming, nothing to see here! The lighting effects are really cool in here, huh? I could have sworn I was glowing green."

During everything that came after the punch, Fushimi had been quiet, nearly as surprised as Yata had been at the end result of the argument as well as Azami's sudden contact. He went along with her calmly at first, but then began to protest as she veered toward the girls' restroom.

"I'm not going in there."

"Yeah you are," the girl replied and nearly pushed him through the door so she could turn the lock behind them. She briefly looked under the stalls to make sure no one was with them and then she rounded on him. "When you said you wanted to get his attention, I didn't think you meant like _that_."

Fushimi clicked his tongue and looked away from her. "Homra is the only way to get Misaki's attention now."

"Not that way."

"Ah?"

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about! You can't just talk about people's deaths like they're meaningless!"

"You're defending the Red Clan now?"

Azami's brows furrowed in response. "What? No, I'm not defending them…Look, Totsuka-san's death was a tragedy, even to me, and I wasn't tied to them like you were. You can't just mock that like its nothing!"

"Tch, tied?" Fushimi scoffed. "I never had any ties with those thugs other than this pointless mark." He made a sort of shrug motion, and the loose collar of his cardigan fell aside to reveal the once great mark of Homra that was now carved through with burns. The symbol of the Red Clan's pride was almost unrecognizable. "A hollow pretense. Look at them now. Their infamous bonds thicker than blood didn't hold out under test any better than the ties to their own relation. A lot of good that did to save Totsuka."

His head snapped to the side so fast it took several long seconds for his quick-processing, computer brain to realize that Azami had slapped him—hard, judging by the stinging in his cheek. When his eyes roved to find her again, he saw that she looked just as surprised at her own reaction as he felt. She pulled her hand back to her chest as if to preserve the poor skin cells she may have taken off with the strike. The blood was already surging to outline the affected area, and the smooth surface began to puff up. The initial surprise at this, however, quickly fell behind a stone wall of seriousness.

"That was payback, and only because I'd feel bad about breaking your jaw. I can't believe something so psychotic would come out of the mouth of someone so smart."

Fushimi clicked his tongue and let his eyes wander once more.

Azami didn't approved of that response. "You have no right to talk about it."

"You do?"

"No, but still more than you. You weren't there that night; I was. You didn't see what it did to them. You didn't hold him when he broke down crying, covered in Totsuka's blood. He needed a friend who understood him and could relate, and you weren't there! You have no right! Your heartless remarks don't do anything but make you look like a fool!"

At that point and maybe even before, Fushimi decided he had had enough. He completely shut down, and when the girl concluded her scolding, he stood silently for a minute longer, staring unseeingly. Then he turned to go. When he had turned the latch and had his hand on the knob, though, a foot came up beside him and kept it closed. Azami was beside him once more—balancing on just her one foot, hands shoved in her pockets, eyes directed at the ground.

"What I meant to say is: I'm willing to bet that this probably is the first time he's been genuinely happy and able to really enjoy himself since that happened. Please don't ruin it for him."

Then she opened the door and exited in front of him, leaving him alone in the girl's bathroom.

* * *

><p>His breath, the only human sound remaining in the room, echoed off the dark, tile walls. At that time it was louder than the crowd yabbering outside the door, louder than the Commodore 64 music still twitting and twanging unnatural notes. There was no speaker in the bathroom, just groaning pipes and the trickle of a toilet whose plunger leaked water constantly into the bowl. The music, therefore, was a distant, muffled sound, almost like a memory because he certainly wasn't going back out there.<p>

The wall felt cool on his back when he leaned against it. This wasn't the first time he had been dragged into a bathroom, not even the first time it had been the girls' room. Somehow, though, this time he had no thoughts. No words overflowed his mind with factious comebacks, critical accusations, or voices from the past. There were neither questions of confusion nor a firm grasp of what had just happened. A bit stunned, there may have been something that resembled pain. He liked the way the cold tile felt on his flushed back. He didn't know why he felt flushed - anger? embarrassment? the hype from before? Even so, he pressed just a bit straighter into it.

His cheek stung. From where he stood, he could easily see his face in a mirror across the way. A red mark was still clearly surfaced on his pale skin. He was fairly sure she hadn't used her aura to hit him. Then, why was he feeling the tiny burning sensation as if it cut deeper than the numerous blows he'd endured through his life? Instinctively a hand reached across his chest to something else that burned, picking at it with rounded nails.

Its warmth, inflamed and unhealed, was a contrast to the chill behind him. Numbness began to fade off, making room for reasoning after a delay longer than normal. He didn't usually show off the mangled mark of his former clan that had never disappeared. Why had he been so sincere with her? It wasn't the first time he had been scolded. The lieutenant criticized his attitude often enough, and _that man's wife** _used to spit regulations at him whenever she was around. He was an expert at ending conversations and even better at not listening. Instead of that, though, he had tried to justify himself to Azami.

She hadn't understood. Of course not, because she was just like _him_, and he still couldn't understand. Somehow, in that thought he found closure. Pushing off the wall he kicked gently at something gross stuck to the floor. Her moral code may not have been elevated to the point of saint, but just like _him _she was firmly attached to the things she stood for. Maybe it had been unreasonable to expect she would stand by idly and enjoy the show, or even simply concede to be a part of his end goal, much less support it. He shouldn't have let her get involved after all.

Obviously, she wouldn't let him anywhere near Yata for the rest of the day, and he really didn't have any other purpose for being there. Since there was no longer any reason to stay, he thought he would probably just go home. _Home? _That brought an exasperated scoff from his lips. Had he really just called that place a home? It was just an empty dorm room on a government facility.

Maybe the world would end and they'd be called out to work. Just in case, he decided to check his phone to see if he might have missed some emergency. When he dug into the front pocket of his slim pants where he usually kept the PDA, his hand returned empty. It wasn't there. He checked the other pockets also - knowing very well he never would have put it in one of them - even those on the jacket. Where had it gone?

It couldn't be in the coat he had hung up, since he had been using it more recently than that. While he was filtering through the memories of the day to hopefully recall where he had left it, the door to his right began to swing open. He cursed under his breath. This was the _women's restroom. _Slamming a hand against the door and jamming his toe into the gap beneath it, he prevented entry. He probably shouldn't have just stayed in there to muse. Where the hell was his phone?

It replayed across his mind then. _Hearing this shout, Fushimi promptly closed the screens of his PDA, and passed it to his accomplice as if it were an object of little to no value._ She had it. That was going to be troublesome. Had it been his own phone, he probably would have just gone to buy another. It being work issued, and therefore a government resource onto which he had recently download a spyware, he couldn't just let it go.

Whatever female wanted access to this room to relieve herself of nature's call had begun to pound on the door, shouting, "Hey! Let me in!"

If the lieutenant asked for an explanation of how he lost his phone, he would definitely die. Dropping it off the bridge to the school island, accidentally baking it into a cake, even trampling it into oblivion before her very eyes would be more acceptable than leaving it in the hands of a green clansman with JUNGLE installed because of one of his disputes with Homra. He could _not, _in any case, return to the Fourth Annex without acquiring the PDA.

"Come on!" The pleading continued from outside. "It's an emergency."

Thinking he might startle her into leaving with a male voice, Fushimi replied, "Go away!"

Even momentarily taken aback, the girl didn't run off screaming. After a brief pause, she shot back, "No way! Do you want me to shit on the floor?"

"Use the men's room." Her obnoxiously forward statement had given him a basic idea of what kind of person he was dealing with, and he hoped in vain that she would just leave.

She didn't. "Ew. What the hell are you doing in there anyways?" As she said this, she forced entry, actually overpowering Fushimi. When he saw the tall, chunky teen with a low cut T-shirt outlining a handful of elven innuendos, he wasn't even surprised that she had succeeded. She looked him over once also with an insulting eye and brushed past, knocking her shoulder against him to shove him aside. She made her way straight to the handicapped stall, mocking, "Go play with yourself on your own side."

Clenching his fist, Fushimi took a step toward her but released it with a sigh. It wasn't worth it, wouldn't even be gratifying. He was definitely leaving this place...as soon as he got his phone back.

* * *

><p>Yata was determined to win this tournament.<p>

He was the best in all of Shizume City.

The championship title was his to defend.

Though he continued repeating these things to himself, his belief in them was waning. It had all been destroyed so quickly. He didn't actually perceive it as destroyed, thinking only that he could easily regain first place on the next machine. Yet his feet, like lead, did not move from that very spot. Even though he had been told to leave the area so as not to be caught as one of the perpetrators, he really hadn't heard those words. Neither did he really see the spiky haired man glaring at him after successfully dispersing the crowd. His mind simply repeated, _you're the best; you're going to win this. _

In the past Fushimi had jokingly called this "reboot mode." He would explain it to other people, "sometimes this guy crashes and has to reboot," or more desperately request, "reboot faster." Of course, while in this mode, Yata neither heard requests nor thought of the past. Sometimes it lasted much longer than others, depending on the amount of information he had to process or reject. Usually he recovered much faster when he simply chose to ignore it.

There were parts of what had just happened that could not be forgotten, even if he elected to do so.

The conclusion drawn from Yata's preliminary processing was: stupid monkey. With that resolved and his over confidence insisting he still had four more hours of hard core gaming in him, he moved robotically back to the restaurant game to reclaim his card. The blank screen stared mockingly at him, and he grit his teeth with a scowl.

His card was definitely stuck. He pulled with all his might, he smashed buttons, he cussed it out - he was going to win this tournament, damn electronics, stupid monkey - and his voice significantly overpowered the shaking stutterings of a nearly normal adult standing off to the side.

"Yata-san...Yata-Yata-san please." He really did try his best to become someone adept at socializing for the sake of owning his own business, but the man's true nature still came through in stressful situations. "P-p-please calm down."

As it was, the owner was well aware that Yata, along with other Homra boys, was often at the center of conflicts in his arcade. He was also one of the best customers.

Rather than accepting the man's advice, Yata punched the front panel of the machine. It quickly became clear when the metal surface glowed red that, in spite of his supposed reboot, Yata still had his finger on the ignition, and a tear slid down his cheek. "-the hell?" He demanded of himself aloud, kneeling there with his forehead against the melting panel that he hadn't stopped pounding. He wasn't crying over the stuck card, or some stupid fight with Saru either.

For the sake of his business, and the games he cherished, the owner stepped in then, leaning towards one of his favorite clients, "Yata-san, if you don't calm down, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Of course, he was afraid of this thought and immediately added, "I don't want that! You're playing very well so far, and you should definitely continue to do so, but..." He hesitated. "I think...I think y-you should chill for a bit. I-I'll take care of your card, for sure."

Outside was the equivalent of freedom. The surrounding influences changed from bleeps, catch phrases, and trash talk to sirens, traffic, and stray dogs. Outside, he didn't have to contain himself, and soon a garbage bin in an abandoned alley became a fitting monument to his two recently passed companions. Engulfed in flame, he watched as it burnt away until not even ash remained just like they had.

Rebuking Fushimi for disrespecting their souls he punched the wall once for good measure. In the last instant, the image of a green haired girl appeared in his vision, and he held back in shock, collapsing to the ground. _Dammit, he'd punched a girl. _He grabbed stray pebbles beside him, tossing them carelessly at the opposing wall of the alley one at a time. His mom would be so mad at him.

The January air cooled his mind, and after a few minutes he had reached a fuller conclusion: the best way to show that stupid monkey the reality of Homra's continued pride was to write it on the trophy he'd surely win for the second year in a row! At that, he reentered the arcade, head held high, confident and composed. He headed straight for the owner, who turned out to actually be _inside _the restaurant game. Wires and memory chips were scattered about amidst piles of tiny screws like a defense army behind a castle moat full of pointed stakes.

Yata remained safely outside the perimeter, but the owner noticed him anyhow. "Ah, Yata-san," he greeted warmly in spite of obvious frustration. "There's good news, and there's bad news. Bad news is: this game is basically shot. Your score was not recorded, and your card is definitely not coming out. Good news is: since it never wrote to your score card, the virus could not effect your cumulative total. Lucky for me because this virus is a nasty one, could have taken down the whole network if it hadn't been forcibly contained to this one device."

Noting that the explanation was going entirely over the skater's head, the owner summarized, "I just have to transfer your player number to a new card and you can keep going as if this fiasco never happened." He crawled to his feet then and gingerly stepped out of his fortress of electronic components to make his way back to main counter, short redhead in tow.

Thankfully, there was a vending machine nearby, and Yata passed the remaining bit of his lost time guzzling a refreshing beverage. Two punks who'd dyed their hair blond and covered their faces with piercings lumbered by laughing like morons. The one with the fauxhawk boasted, "I can't believe I just passed Yatagarasu on the leader board!"

"Way to go, Man," the other applauded.

It was true. He was down to third place. That in itself was infuriating, but he could catch up. He was going to win this tournament. When they continued speaking, though, it really got on his nerves.

"What kind of name is Yatagarasu anyways?"

"Totally lame."

The empty can of soda crushed in his fist. For the sake of maintaining a good environment, he was sure to chuck it at a trash can. The owner presented him with his new card then, and he accepted it gratefully, immediately taking off after those two guys.

Pointing at fauxhawk, he declared, "You, race. Now."

They laughed, thinking someone as short as him would certainly be easy prey. "You think you can beat me, Kid? I'm Oni4 in second place. Are you even up there?"

Their taunting did nothing to dampen his assurance, and with fire blazing in his eyes, he smirked. "I'm Yatagarasu, and this is my arcade!"

* * *

><p>* <em>YOU:<em> when we have put this word in all caps and Italics is it trying to designate the use of the Japanese word "Temee." This is often translated to English as "You Bastard." However, we didn't feel that "Bastard" should be used every time Yata wanted to say, "You," but that he would still continue to use "Temee" anyhow. It conveys extreme rudeness and disrespect, but not necessarily cussing.

** _That man's wife_: Fushimi hardly ever uses people's names, so that you kind of have to know him pretty well to make out which pronoun belongs to which person. In this section "_him_" refers to Yata and "_that man's wife_" is Fushimi's mom. LSW explained that Fushimi and his mom never referred to the other through their own relationship, but rather through their relationship to Fushimi, Niki, whom they both simply called, "That man."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Okay, thank you for reading and all your continued support! As noted previously, starting with the next chapter this story will be renamed to "Sixth Annual Shizume City Arcade Tournament." Kateracks is disappointed in this name because it is very long. Arait is disappointed in it because now the first chapter where Fushimi is wandering around trying to remember what's so important about January 21st is completely spoiled by the title. However, we do not wish to deter any readers due to phrases that can be mistaken for vulgar.<strong>_

_**Please continue supporting us in spite of the name change. As a final note, we do appreciate all feedback, be it critique or praise, and we try our utmost to improve based on suggestions. So please do tell us what you think.**_


	5. Hot in Pursuit

_**Ah, sorry everyone that this chapter took longer than usual to post! No excuses. We only hope that our readers were able to bear with us through this slight lull to enjoy this chapter. It should be a fun one (any chapter that is allowed to start with the sentence below ought to be fun! It's certainly not everyday that a chapter can begin with those words).**_

_**Also in this chapter, there were two firsts. Arait wrote Azami parkouring, and Kateracks wrote Fushimi's thoughts, both of which were quite small sections. Still, it was a great feat for each of us!**_

* * *

><p>Any game that considered it an acceptable and legal tactic to poop banana peels out on the opponent behind you was uplifting. Granted, that refreshment only applied to the player in the lead, who most definitely was not Oni4. The track selected at random by the game out of the four most difficult was a snow covered mountainside, half of which was an icy luge suspended hundreds of feet in the air filled with gaping holes. If you fell in one of those, it would take quite some time to recover your racing cart. Another aspect uncommon to normal driving were the spinning laser traps that had to be avoided.<p>

The adjustable seat before the screen and an actual steering wheel made playing feel realistic, though. Yata turned each corner with his whole body. He almost thought he could feel the icy air nipping at his face because of the wind caused by an open vehicle. While he was yet in his first match back from break, Yata already thought, _I'll definitely do snowboarding next. _

In one fell swoop, the wild crow left fauxhawk in the dust—both on the track and cumulatively speaking. Pointing at him and his friend, Yata strutted away, taunting, "Good game, Losers."

His reputation restored, they didn't dare take him on a second time, in either the 2D or 3D world. Everyone who was a semi-decent gamer knew that Yatagarasu was a formidable opponent, a force to be reckoned with, and only the strongest among them could come close to touching him. Knowing this himself, he jumped up on the imitation board controls and killed the slaloms just like he would on his own skateboard. Still quite a ways behind the player currently in first place for the competition, Yata felt like it was definitely within his reach again. He was catching up.

* * *

><p>Azami put as much distance between her and the bathroom as possible, moving to the front of the store near the windows before she paused to collect herself. Heaving a sigh, she rested her back against the side of a machine and stared out the glass at people walking by on the street. Despite her getting an adequate amount of sleep the night before, time had begun to feel like it was dragging on. She was very well aware that she needed to get back to the competition if she hoped to stay in the runnings for the championship, but her energy seemed to be running low.<p>

Fortunately for her, someone else was also privy to this fact. Kazuki grabbed her wrist as he was passing by and announced, "Lunch break!"

She followed sluggishly, muttering, "It's okay, I don't really feel like it."

Kazuki slung an arm around her neck like a bully who was trying a little too hard to look buddy-buddy and continued to drag her toward the commons area. "Now's the perfect time. We'll get some ramen, replenish our strength, and have a little chat."

"I blew most of my allowance just getting into this tournament. I can wait 'til we get home to eat."

"Azami," he addressed her, his voice taking on a kinder tone as he guided her into a chair and leaned on the two seater table in front of her to look in her face. "This..." He gestured vaguely across the arcade. "Whatever this is, it's draining you. It's not hard to see it on your face. Let me buy you lunch, and then tell me what's going on, alright?"

Folding her arms on the table and resting her face atop them, she sighed again in resignation. "Yeah, alright."

He patted her on the head as he went about finding some food. "Be right back."

A section of the arcade was roped off and arranged with a few plastic tables and chairs where gamers could eat cup ramen as well as a small variety of other unhealthy, vending machine snacks for lunch. Most of them were too determined in their pursuit of the crown to go to an actual eating establishment. Some of them were known to survive on only chocolate and energy drinks throughout the whole day (If it were entirely up to Fushimi, he could go an entire season having consumed nothing but these things). As it was, the owner could not allow his tournament to acquire a bad name accused of being detrimental to the health of its participants, so he was sure to always have snacks on hand.

Several minutes passed in Kazuki's absence during which she was alone with all her thoughts and then...

"Take it." The dull command caught Azami by surprise accompanied by a warm bundle wrapped in wax paper dropping onto the table before her face with a crumpling sound.

Startled, she raised her eyebrows and looked to see who the donor was. His demeanor gave the clear impression that he did not want to be there; still, he was, and that counted for something. Sitting up straight, she carefully unwrapped the greasy package to find half a dozen fresh breadsticks, coated with melted cheese and garlic butter.

For his part, outside had not done Fushimi nearly the same amount of good as it had Yata. There had been just as many rude and obnoxious people at the pizza place around the corner, but he had been on a mission. Thus, with dragging feet and eyes cast off to the side, he made the less than formal offering to a discouraged girl sitting in a plastic chair with her head lying on her arms.

Once she had seen that which composed the gift of reconciliation, he muttered far off into the distance, "'Cause you got punched...or something..."

"'Or something'?" Azami repeated. The meaning was not clarified which returned her expression to a frown, and she settled back into her chair, crossing her arms and legs into a closed-off, defensive posture. She asked, "You're not sure? Do you even know why you're here?"

Still he made no attempt to explain further, but he wasn't leaving, and he had brought her just the thing she had requested in a round about way. Could this be his way of apologizing or...?

"Oh...that something..." she realized and, digging into the cargo pocket at her thigh, she retrieved the PDA he had left in her possession. Holding it up to gain his focus, she voiced, "Just exactly how much trouble would you be in for losing this into the hands of a Green Clansman, I wonder?"

That drew the sulky boy's attention, and he shifted just slightly. The situation clearly made him uncomfortable; although, he was doing his best to not let it show. His hand twitched as if refraining from reaching out to snatch the device immediately. These were tiny clues that would have gone entirely unnoticed if Azami hadn't been focused on reading him.

"Aha," she teased, "that got your attention."

She was more discerning than Misaki, which had made this exchange already become bothersome, he thought while clicking his tongue. "This and that are...different, but." To salvage his purpose, he began to explain something that vaguely resembled truth, then muttered the rest in a way that was nearly inaudible, "I need the phone."

"'Need?' So it's a lot of trouble then?"

Indeed, there would be a lot of trouble. As far as security was concerned, the device was fingerprint activated, so he didn't think the girl could get in herself. Between the prying nature of the Green Clan, and the recently installed application that continued to leech more of his information every second longer it remained in her hands, though, he was bound to receive at least a severe lecture, boundless amounts of paperwork, and most likely innumerable after shocks in weeks to come. When he felt his mind start to race, Fushimi consciously lowered his entire demeanor a notch to one more apathetic.

"Not at all," he lied.

"No? I bet there are a lot of government agents in your contact list. A lot of information about case files...a lot of high tech programs an investigator like me could use to get plenty of classified information."

She hit the nail right on the head, and she knew it. Her confidence exuded from her posture, shattering Fushimi's carefree facade. His face quirked in an attempt to maintain an equivalent appearance of surety.

"No. Because you _will _give it back."

"You think so? That easy?"

Fushimi glanced at his hand with disinterest. "You know, I could arrest you for theft of government property?"

"You could, but you won't," Azami affirmed with certainty. "It's not theft since you willingly gave it to me yourself."

However, Fushimi's face showed no indication that he had been either joking or making vain threats. A tiny menace in his dead eyes conveyed the idea that he actually would have no qualms with sending her to the Scepter 4 prison over night—even if she were released and cleared of suspicion immediately—for the sole purpose of reacquiring his phone. Thus, instead of testing his determination in that regard, she offered a different proposal.

Leaving her seat, Azami took a few steps toward the microwave just to check on her fellow clansman's progress. Kazuki was fifth in line to cook their ramen bowls, so based upon the amount of time each bowl would take, she had approximately 20 free minutes.

"Know what? I think there is _some _sincerity to your gesture," she granted, indicating the order of breadsticks that she hadn't yet even tried to eat. "But I also think that it's for totally the wrong reason. So here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna find out how sincere you really are."

She paused for effect, but when Fushimi made no response, she held his phone out toward him and continued, "You want this back?" Shoving it back in her own pocket, she challenged, "You're gonna have to catch me."

She moved toward the door, but from his position Fushimi was able to reach Kazuki's chair. A well-placed shove with his foot scooted it right into her path. _This would be over in no time, and then he could go home_, he thought. He certainly didn't expect her to hop right up onto the moving obstacle, step onto the table, and flip over his head to the other side of the velvet rope.

Hands on her hips, she leaned toward him and said, "I told you it wouldn't be that easy. Better start taking this seriously." Then she spun on her heel and jogged out the door.

Fushimi blinked in surprise and then ducked under the rope, also exiting the establishment. Damn. She had quite literally gotten the jump on him already. This could prove to be more tedious than he thought as physical tests were not his forte.

Even so, she was only two store fronts down from him, so if he ran he could potentially catch up. He shifted into gear, and a few seconds later he was closing in on her, at which point, she grinned at him over her shoulder. He scowled; she looked like this was no more effort than a morning stroll!

"There you are, that's better. You ready?" He didn't vocalize the reply he really _wanted_ to make, but the plain look of irritation in his eyes was what she was looking for. "Alright, let's go!"

Then her stride changed, lengthening and quickening so that she had regained a substantial lead on him in a matter of steps. Whereas his footfalls were heavy and loud with each impact against the ground, Azami's were light, almost like she wasn't touching at all. But not only was she faster at running, it became painfully obvious that that wasn't her only strategy when a bike rack drew closer and she jumped onto its end bar, then to a trash can, and then to a light pole where she could grab one of the arms sticking out. From there she swung up to the edge of a bus stop shelter, completely bypassing the crowd of loading and departing passengers while Fushimi had to go out into the street and dodge cars to avoid them. By the time he did so, Azami had already rolled off the hood of the bus and gone around the corner.

Upon reaching the end of the block that Azami had so easily dashed around, Fushimi glanced ahead to see how far she had gotten. If he wanted to have any chance of catching up, he would definitely have to think of a smarter method than simply running after her in chase. As it was, he already felt somewhat out of breath, and the cold, winter air was stabbing at his lungs. She didn't seem to be suffering either of these symptoms as she made her way farther down the street, lightweight and agile like an acrobat.

His eyes darted left and right, taking in all the surroundings at once. He had, at one time, been quite familiar with this area of town, yet he couldn't quickly spot a viable shortcut to cut off Azami's flight. Desperate for an alternative, Fushimi's fingers twitched nervously. Of the cars passing along the street, one happened to be a scooter, and Fushimi fearlessly stepped in front of it without hesitation. Raising a hand to halt the driver, he had no doubt the person would stop.

The man slowed and honked, shouting, "Out of the way!"

That gave Fushimi the chance to state by rote a spiel that he often used on the job. "I am a law enforcement agent. I need to borrow your vehicle."

Obviously, he had acted on instinct faster than he had thought. It was his uniform that he wasn't wearing that stopped cars in their tracks, and his badge that convinced drivers to give them up. As he reached into the front pocket of his pants to pull out his phone and show the holographic proof that he worked for the government, he remembered that the reason he needed the scooter was because he had lost his phone. Since the man didn't stop for him, instead swerving around the undercover officer, Fushimi shoved him off as he passed by. Then, he simply confiscated the bike without permission and continued his pursuit of the fugitive, green clanswoman.

When he caught sight of her again, she had crossed the street and ducked into an alley behind a super market. Once there, she pulled herself over the rail to the loading dock and ran down the ramp to where lines of pallets holding crates of produce were waiting to be hauled in. With light feet, she bolted across the tops of the boxes, jumped to the raised lift and then leaped up to climb onto the roof of the semi truck. From there it was a small matter to get into the window of the parking garage next door.

Fushimi swerved in amongst the parked cars and sped up to the level where she had climbed in, but she was already halfway across to the other side. Luckily, the scooter was small enough to slip between the gaps in the cars. It was all for naught, though, since Azami had only used the garage to cut across the block. She stopped at the winding staircase that led to level ground and waited for him to get into clear hearing range.

"Cheater!" she shouted at him and then disappeared into the stairwell.

Fushimi pulled up beside the banister to look down on her, but rather than using the stairs like any sane person, she was on the wrong side of the railings, dropping from level to level. Stepping on the gas, he headed for the nearest ramp down in hopes he'd be able to head her off.

They had come pretty close to the main intersection at the center of downtown Shizume on their left. With a clear image of that place in his mind, Fushimi presumed a parkour artist like the green girl would try to avoid such spacious flat areas at all costs, especially since it was overflowing with people. She needed obstacles to evade crowds. That place was nothing but sidewalk, pavement, and glass skyscrapers. For this reason, Fushimi knew upon reaching the ground level again, Azami would not go left.

He brought the scooter around the right side of the building to cut off another option. The more he could force her to go a certain direction, the more control he would have over their game of tag. Hopefully, in these conditions she would cross the street.

His pursuit vehicle reached the front just as she hit the sidewalk. Having mapped out all the possible routes from her location while still on the exterior stairway, Azami paused less than a second to choose which one would best suit her based on her opponent's position. She had come off the building right at a crosswalk with the signal for walk clearly lit, so she darted across the street. Whether she knew Fushimi was guiding her that way or not, the circumstances still lent themselves in her favor.

Traffic was stopped for the red light, so Fushimi swerved between stationary cars and reached the other side quickly enough that he could once again cut off her route to the right. She continued straight, and he barreled full-throttle down the sidewalk after her. This part of the street was emptier than others, sporting no trees that could be climbed, bus stops that were only a small indicating sign, and a few pedestrians. While Azami still made her way through the people as adeptly as before, the less athletic young man realized it was much easier to part a crowd with a revving engine. He was catching up.

Abruptly, an obstacle that had never been on this street before came upon them. A hotel restaurant had expanded it's dining area onto the patio all along the store front, presumably because of a sudden boost of clients or a special event. That kind of unexpected twist was exactly what Azami needed to get ahead of him again. Clicking his tongue, Fushimi quickly drove into oncoming traffic, calculating he probably wouldn't fall too far behind.

For her part, however, Azami vaulted right over the temporary fence that kept non-customers from entering restaurant space. From the street Fushimi stole glances at her, with the excuse that he needed to keep tabs on her progress, and watched as she lithely weaved her way around servers, tables, and clients without losing any of her original speed. She leaped over the fence barring her exit also and then instantly dropped to slide beneath a pull-out-couch being delivered to the hotel by two men.

In spite of everything that should have slowed a person down, she came out of the mess several strides further ahead of her pursuer than before entering, bringing a quiet growl from him as his hands clenched tighter on the handle bars. He was obviously being too kind. Next time a restaurant got in their way, he would plow right through it also. This he decided as he was bumping over the curb back onto the sidewalk to avoid a cab that was honking furiously at him.

When they were approaching the corner this time, the crosswalk symbol was clearly telling them to stop, and Azami's mind raced through possibilities. She could dart around and over moving cars. If she were desperate, as in if escaping meant her life, she would take such a dramatic risk. It would probably result in her success unharmed and leave a trail of obstacles that would be difficult for her pursuer to get around. However, it wasn't worth taking the chance. She could climb the street light and cross that way; she had once before. That also was rather dangerous and uncertain compared to the relatively clear path to the right.

She rounded the corner at full speed. This made Fushimi smirk, even as the wheels slid out from beneath him and he had to slam on the brakes to not completely wipe out at the corner. If he floored it, he could pin her behind the hotel. Pushing off the ground with the foot he had used to stabilize the falling scooter, he took off after her again.

The street was basically empty. It lined the back sides of two rows of businesses, so there definitely wouldn't be any pedestrian activity. It seemed like a shadowy place, ripe for illegal dealings, and both of them knew they'd been here before, for differing reasons. The off-duty blue clansman remembered exactly where he had trapped the strain last time.

He overtook her enough to cut off her path just past an entrance to an alley, so she spun on her heel and ran right into it. With confidence, Fushimi parked the scooter to block the entrance and climbed off, dropping the kickstand. That was the only exit. This alley was the laundry and handyman passageway between the three buildings of the hotel. It lead to three locked doors. The entrance on the backstreet was probably only there because of city ordinances in case of fire. What was more, since the path was used exclusively to transport laundry and tools, nothing permanently remained there. It was a place without obstacles on the ground.

That wasn't to say Fushimi believed he had won, or that to proceed from there would be a simple matter. Obviously, he still had to pin Azami down and pry the PDA from her fingers. He had watched her fight and knew she could hold her own. Her strength was in moving around, however. It was like he had clipped her wings and at last had a chance.

The girl's head swiveled from side to side, taking in all the angles before she turned to face him. With only the light shining down from the sky directly above the alley, there was a glare on Fushimi's glasses, making him appear like an axe murderer from a horror movie as he stalked toward his prey. To his surprise, though, when she turned around, her expression was not that of panic or discouragement. Instead, she had a grin on her face.

"You look far too happy for someone who just got caught with nowhere to run," he pointed out.

"I just remembered that you weren't with Red the first time he met me, so you don't know," she explained cheerily.

"Don't know what?"

Her smile took on the confidence of a smirk and she said, "Nothing yet."

Then she darted back toward him. Fushimi shifted his stance so he could catch her and keep her as she tried to go around him. However, that was not her plan as became apparent when she didn't run straight at him, but at an angle toward the wall. _What did she think she was doing? There was nowhere to go._

But the parkour side of Azami's brain had highlighted an escape route for her via a worn spot in the wall where a crack had started and then grew with the moisture of several harsh winters. Running at an angle, she connected with the wall with enough speed and momentum to take one—two steps along the surface and then make a cat-like leap up to a few bricks protruding from the old mortar. Those gave her an avenue to scale up to the raised ladder of a fire escape Fushimi hadn't included in his calculations.

Now very irate as she once again climbed out of his reach, the boy reacted in a way he would have used on an average strain on the lam rather than the potential love interest of his former best friend. A knife appeared from the sleeve of his cardigan and sailed through the air coated in red to slice through a support at one side of the ladder like a welding torch. The metal groaned as the ladder rotated on one lone screw.

"_Excuse_ me?" Azami drawled and jumped to the bottom rung of the railing on the walkway before her getaway plan collapsed entirely. Once she had successfully flipped herself to stable ground, she peered down at him and said, "Red aura? What happened to not having any ties to those _thugs_?"

After providing that food for thought, she made her way to the roof and around the impassible wall to the back side of the hotel. Fushimi rushed to his ride and burned rubber as he peeled out around the corner in pursuit. When he reached the other side, he saw her slide down a pipe along the side of the building until it branched off to another and then she could drop to an A/C unit. She hit the ground a couple feet ahead of him and sprinted to a fence where she slipped through a small gap created by two broken boards. Fushimi cut hard to the right and followed the fenceline back to the sidewalk.

Azami had hurried across a less congested side street to the rear of the local library. The grand staircase had great block-like shapes lining the edges of the steps used for normal foot traffic so the girl bypassed this slower route and vaulted up the larger structures in an ape-like fashion.

Scooters, of course, could not accomplish this same feat, even on smaller stairs, but there was a wheelchair ramp running alongside in a "Z" pattern to make gradual slopes upward. Knowing this to be a far less direct path, Fushimi pushed the engine to the max and pointed himself up the incline.

In regards to agility, the bike was also nothing compared to the female who had already reached the upper landing, and its turning radius was worthless. When he hit the first corner of the zigzagged ramp, he literally hit it. The hairpin turn was too tight for the vehicle to take with any speed at all, as if he would have been better off to dismount and push the scooter up the hill. The back tire spun out, and quick thinking prevented it from tipping over to crush him, deciding instead to slide through the corner without turning at all. Still, he couldn't keep from colliding with the far railing.

As it turned out, he had come to a complete stop anyhow. Grumbling, he untangled himself from the railing and twisted the throttle to continue. He didn't make it much farther, though, because a baby stroller driven by a rotund woman and a wheelchair were coming down at the same time as he rounded the next corner. To turn around wasn't an option since there were no other routes for the vehicle unless, maybe, he drove around the building entirely. That would be of no help if she hid inside. By elimination it became clear this would be where he would lose his ride and have to continue on foot.

On the other hand, though, it would also take too much time to run down the ramp and up the stairs. He could get around all the traffic on the ramp if he just climbed up and over the walls, it seemed. This proved to be much more difficult than he had anticipated since he didn't really lift his entire body weight very often.

"You should take a run at it. Plant your foot and jump over," came from above him.

Fushimi gave her an irritated look that in his mind was more of a death glare. He would have thrown a knife at her then and there except his hands were at the moment occupied with keeping him from falling on his face. She waited until he made it over the final climb and then took off down the walkway, a giggle echoing behind her to taunt him. Once he was at the top, though, he was free to counter as he saw fit so he aimed for her baggy pant leg and then the tail of her jacket—anything that would pin her down long enough to get what he came for.

Fortunately for Azami, the path was not as flat as it seemed. The walkway was, yes, but there was a wall along the edge to corral unruly children and to provide a foundation for the pillars that supported the overhang above them. It was this Azami traveled along rather than the conventional route.

The whistle of sharp metal as it cut the air drew her attention, but as she hung off the wall for a moment to evade it, the knife sliced through one of the folds in her pants and ricocheted off the stone. He had great aim! She would have been impaled against that pillar if she hadn't moved. He was out of patience now, she could see and knew that she'd have to be more careful as she climbed back up.

No sooner had she thought that then a second blade came flying toward her. To avoid that, she grabbed onto the pillar and swung herself around to the other side where she resumed her run along the wall. The third she dodged this way, too, but in the opposite direction, out over the freshly pruned bushes of the courtyard. When she came back around, she skipped the wall and tucked into a roll onto the walkway that landed her near the door. She almost mowed over a librarian in her haste to get inside.

"Sorry!" she apologized in response to the order, "Don't run!"

The minor disturbance helped Fushimi's cause greatly and she barely spun out of his reach when he made a grab for her, putting the librarian between them. The Green Girl broke into a run again, but had to promptly make a diving roll over a book cart a young man was pushing and then slide underneath a table full of students so she didn't slam her forehead into the aged wood.

Behind the two, the female librarian shrieked, "I'm going to ask you kids to leave right now!" mostly concerned by the wreckage Fushimi left in his wake as he recklessly tried to keep up.

"I'll show myself out!" Azami called back and vaulted over a check-out desk to make a break for the door, Fushimi hot on her heels.

She front-flipped over the first set of stairs back down to the first landing and hopped over the dividing banister as Fushimi made another lunged at her. He ducked under the railing at the same time as she jumped up onto the guard wall and cut off her escape, thinking that she would try to run along the wall again. Instead, she stepped off into the air and dropped to the lawn below where she rolled out of the impact and ran across the expanse of grass to the park next door.

Fushimi grit his teeth and growled inwardly while he continued down the stairs to a place where he could safely jump down. Normal people did not leap from these types of heights and keep running immediately afterwards. Average people did not scale flat walls. Sane people did not willingly swing themselves into midair and play chicken with dangerous drops to keep hold of a phone that was, at this point, unable to be salvaged from a virus. Just what sort of illogical, irresponsible, undeterred person bent on making him suffer for payback was this reckless side of Hayashi, Azami? It didn't matter. There was no fun in this game of hers and he was outright angry and officially _done_. He was going to make his next throw _really_ count.

So when she ran full speed at a swing and jumped aboard, Fushimi knew there was nowhere else for her to go but up. Sure enough, she jumped toward a tree branch and at that same time, with impeccable speed and accuracy, Fushimi's knife sliced open her pocket. Azami arrived safely to her next perch, but she felt the added weight leave the pocket at her thigh and by the time she steadied herself to locate it, Fushimi had already reclaimed it.

The boy looked up as she climbed down from the boughs of the tree, blessing him with a congratulatory smile. While she hadn't appeared to be tiring during the chase, it was apparent now that she, too, had needed a break. She drew in fresh air in controlled gasps and her exposed collar bone glimmered with a thin sheen of sweat. Fushimi didn't dwell on it and instead considered options for how he would destroy the phone. After all, when he tried to activate it, even his backup password wasn't accepted. The whole thing had already been corrupted; no choice remained but to scrap it.

"Thanks for the exercise," she granted even if he wasn't really listening. "Got me all warmed up for this afternoon. You should come back in."

"No thanks," he responded; although, the voice was void of gratitude. At the same moment, the PDA dropped from his fingers as if accidentally and fell with a clattering sound to the cement path that separated the gravel beneath the swing set from the grass under the trees. It was only when his heel stomped down on the blackened screen, shattering it, that his action became obviously deliberate. After crushing the electronic device a few more times, he ground it further into the sidewalk with a twisting motion. "I have some things to take care of."

Thinking he sure was acting like a sore loser in spite of having accomplished his mission, Azami gave him one more chance, offering, "If you come back in, maybe we can compete again on a playing field that's more even for you. You can't leave yet anyway; you owe me a new pair of pants."

With that, she grinned, turned, and walked toward the park exit that was near a crosswalk which would take her across the street to where a bunch of game nerds were loitering. It was up to him to make the next move now. Observing as she disappeared in the crowd across the way, he cursed to himself, _Damn_. That much work, and all she did was lead him in a big circle.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Will Fushimi go back to the arcade, or will he be arrested for stealing the scooter? Did some random bystander eat all the breadsticks? What does Kazuki think of this whole mess? Stay tuned to learn more.<strong>_

_**Btw, in these stories we make references to *all* GoRA K Project works, including the lesser known Drama CDs, the mangas, and the novels such as Lost Small World (particularly when talking about the app JUNGLE, etc.). However, we only have access to what has already been translated into English, and we are determined to go in order. Therefore, the second half of Lost Small World, the end of Side: Blue, K: The Countdown, and Missing Kings are still inaccessible to us. We greatly apologize for any discrepancies between what we write and canon truths. These will be adjusted or explained as we learn more information.**_

_**Also, so glad to see Kuroh in his original uniform with his hair tied back up in the newest PV for Season 2!**_

_**Poor Yata is suffering from lack of attention in this story! Please help us fix this!**_


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